The Unnaturals
by hydrarianbeast
Summary: Have you ever had an ability that others found amazing, but you consider a curse? Hydra, a lone, abandoned eevee, feels this way with her ability to freeze and command pokemon. In a deserted city full of pokemon gangs, one takes her in, ready to aid her with her ability and get her to help prevent a war between the gangs, unaware of the greater threat rising beneath them.
1. Chapter 1

"Hey, kid, what are you running for?"

Oh, no. I saw the poochyena and mightyena surround me. I don't believe this. I should have listened to the Persian. The town I lived in was nearly vacant when it comes to humans, but there were quite a few pokemon gangs. I was a lone eevee, and not a strong one. I had belonged to a man, but he gave me up when he left the town. And now I was being attacked by one of the most feared pokemon gangs: the Shadow Eaters.

The head mightyena stalked up to me. "I'll admit, you are quite the fast little sucker. Now, I might have been able to ignore this whole mess if you hadn't run. But now, I think it's time to teach you a lesson." He laughed menacingly, and moved in.

A different laughter rang out; female laughter. "Now, Dahk, you know not to cross boarders without permission, that is, unless you are a bit more sneaky than this."

From a nearby window, a pokemon leaped onto the windowsill. I recognized its form immediately. It was a vaporeon.

"My goodness, what kind of battle is this? Something-teen to one? That doesn't seem fair." From a trashcan, a flareon jumped out.

"This might be a shock to you, but we don't like unfair fights. Well, at least fights this unfair." Breaking down a door, a jolteon appeared as well. I couldn't believe my luck. I managed to run here? Only thing was I wasn't sure where here was. At least I was able to get some help.

The three pokemon leaped in front of me. "Now, how about a bit more excitement," the vaporeon said. Without warning, she leaped onto the head of Dahk and started to attack the other pokemon from the back of their leader.

The other two started to attack as well. Jolteon started running around the group, occasionally shocking one of the pokemon that got too close to his ring. Flareon was engaging the ring of followers all at once. His fire attacks seemed to come one after another. Vaporeon was engaging Dahk. The two seemed to only be using physical attacks.

I sat in the middle, trying hard not to panic. No, no, don't do this. You know what happens when you start to freak out. I couldn't help it though. I felt my heart start to beat very fast. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't do it. But I couldn't help it. I screamed.

Then it happened. All of the members of the Shadow Eaters stopped in mid movement. Unfortunately, so did my three rescuers. I sighed. Man, why does this happen every time? Well, if I must, I must. "Shadow eaters, disappear." And as if on cue, all of them vanished with a blue light. The three eons stayed stuck where they were, but they seemed to be trying to turn their eyes on me. "Unfreeze." With another small blue flash, they all stumbled as they became mobile again.

"How on earth did you do that?" the flareon asked, sounding very excited. "What move was that? Can I learn it? Is there a tm for it?"

"I would say we're dreaming if I didn't feel the pain at the moment," the jolteon mumbled as he picked himself up off of the ground."

"Are you guys thinking what I'm thinking?" the vaporeon asked. She looked at both of the others, and smiled. I took a step back.

"How would you like to join a pokemon gang?"


	2. Chapter 2

"So, you three are part of a new pokemon gang?" I asked as we walked down 13th street. The town's layout was very simple and easy to understand. Roads running north and south were odd numbers, and roads running east and west were even numbers. The numbers started at the left of the north ones.

"Yes, we are attempting to create a new pokemon gang," the vaporeon, who introduced herself as Lilly, answered. The flareon, who said his name was Eriff, was running around pouncing on trash. Elric, the jolteon, was walking carefully while watching for attackers.

"Well, I have a question for you," I said to Lilly. "How come you guys didn't run in fear after I unfroze you?"

Elric chuckled. "We've seen some pretty weird things in our time. Yes, it was a bit mind-blowing, but we've seen worse."

"Though I do want to know how you do it," Eriff said, coming up beside us. "I actually have the dream of becoming the world's only pokemon pokemon breeder. That move is one of the most advanced moves I have ever seen. I would love to learn more about it."

I sighed inwardly. Well, I would need to tell them eventually. "I call it Psyche Scream. I freeze all pokemon around me, and whatever order I give happens. Though I can only do it when I'm afraid."

Lilly tossed her tail side to side thoughtfully. "I don't think it's a move, then. It sounds more like an ability. We can have our best researcher take a look into it. Speaking of which," she stopped walking and turned to me. "You haven't told us your name."

My ears drooped. I never liked my name. "Hydra. Hydra Del-Sapphire."

Elric cocked his head. "Do you not like your name?"

I sighed. "I like it, but I have never been able to live up to it."

Lilly smiled. "Well, I think that will be a name that will scare most of our competition away."

"Competition?"

"Just wait," Eriff said. "We will explain everything back at base."

"Well, that won't be long then," Lilly said, flicking her tail forward. I saw what looked like an old restaurant that went out of business. The doors and windows were boarded up. That didn't stop the three. They all jumped through a gap in between the boards, and seemed to melt through the door. I did the same thing, but less confidently.

The room inside was bazaar. All of the tables were pushed against the walls, and many different things were spread about the room. I didn't know what to make of it.

"State your name," a voice said.

"Lilly, and the code today is singer."

A panel of the ceiling lowered towards us. We all got on, and it went upwards. When we reached the top, I was even more impressed.

It was a giant dome shaped room with various doorways leading out of it. There was an electrical fan on the ceiling, lighting up the room. The floor was covered in a thin layer of marble. The three led me into a room with a thunderbolt above the doorway. It was dark inside, except the light coming from dozens of computer screens. The only thing out of place was the Porygon-Z going nuts.

"Oh my, so much info, so much info, so much amazing info," he said as he flew around the room.

Lilly sighed. "This is why we don't like putting him in charge of the cameras. He goes nuts. Elric, could you shock him back to sanity?" Elric smiled, and a small bolt of electricity left him and contacted with the Porygon-Z. He stopped and turned to us. I could see a multicolor beam forming near the middle of him. He was planning on using tri-attack.

Lilly stepped forward. "KY, why is Kykis not on camera watch?"

KY let his attack die down. "Oh, uh, Master Lilly, well, he left to get a cord to replace one of the ones on computer 13, so I thought I would take over watching until he gets back."

She sighed. "You know it's not good for you. Your download ability makes you go crazy in here. Now, you are going to help us out with Hydra."

He flew towards us and stopped face to face with me. "What am I researching?"

Lilly smacked him in the head with her tail for being so close. "We think she has a special move or ability. We want you to see what you come up with."

He floated back into the air since Lilly knocked him down. "Okay then. Miss, if you will just come with me." He flew out of the room and I followed. This time we went through a doorway with a star above it. Inside there was a giant platform and a control panel off to the side.

"Now, I am going to drop a gastly onto the platform to attack you. He won't do any real harm, but he might give you a good whack every now and then. So, let's see what you can do."

"W-wait," I stuttered. But it was too late, the gastly was released. He flew towards me, laughing at his victim. He stared at me, and his eyes flashed yellow. Mean look. Now I was unable to run. Then he curled his face into a sneer. Scary face. It was definitely working. I could feel my panic level rising. He started to fly around me, trapping me in a ring of smoke. My panic level broke. I used Psyche Scream.

The gaslty froze, and so did KY. I waited a moment while I regained mobility, then turned to the ghost. "Go back to where you came from." He immediately floated back to the hole in the ceiling he had fell from. "Unfreeze." I said to KY. He started flying around at a great speed.

"It's amazing!" He yelled. "The readings were off the charts! I'm surprised you didn't break the equipment!"

"Yeah, yeah, it's super cool. Now is it an ability or a move?" I asked.

He stopped flying around. "I believe that it is both! The readings that came up said that what you did was a very strong psychic attack. I believe you have the ability to use Psychic, but since you are an eevee, your body can't control it, so it only happens when you start to panic, just like some psyducks can use attacks when they get a really bad headache."

"So what is this competition thing I heard about?" I asked, changing the subject drastically. This conversation was coming to a dangerous area. The last thing I needed was for him to wonder how it all started.

"Hmm? Oh, yes, that's an easy one. The gangs are all about to have a tournament. And if that doesn't do what it's intended to do, then there will be a full out gang war."


	3. Chapter 3

For an odd reason, I was not fazed by this. Okay, so there is a war that might happen. What's new? "And how is this tournament going to keep us from waging war?"

"It's actually a very risky gamble," KY said. He started fiddling with the control panel. "Every gang is entering in this tournament. The winning gang will become the leader of all gangs. If a good gang manages to become leader, this town could actually become a decent place. But, if someone like the Shadow Eaters win, there will be a revolution."

"Which is exactly why we want your help." Lilly said, walking into the room with the others. "You have a power that is stronger than any of ours. You might be able to help us. If we win the tournament, then we just might be able to restore the town. It would be hard, but not impossible."

I scowled. "So am I just a tool for you guys to use?"

Elric shook his head. "You misunderstand us. In a game of cards, you want to give yourself the best cards. It is almost impossible to win without them. We need you. Plus, it looks like to us that you can use our help as well. Dahk would have killed you."

"Plus, we do need more members," Eriff added. "We only have seven so far if we include you. To enter the tournament, we need at least ten members."

I looked at all of them. "Fine, but where can I get some food? I'm starving."

"Though the doorway with the fork and knife above it."

They didn't even see me as I streaked by. Finding the right doorway, I dove through and found myself in a room full of different foods. I am in heaven. I didn't even care what I was eating. I just ate and ate.

"Slow down before you hurt yourself," Eriff said as he walked in. "I can't even eat that much."

"A side effect from Psyche Scream," I said. "It takes up an enormous amount of energy."

He grabbed an apple and started to eat it. "So when did this ability start?"

"About a year ago," I said. I had to be careful. This was a very dangerous topic.

"I find it rather fascinating that what it is doesn't match up with what KY thinks. He's usually never wrong. He thinks you can use the move psychic, but that just isn't it, since it worked on Dahk and the other Shadow Eaters." I shrugged. I didn't really care what it was. I just wanted it to stop.

"Do you have any idea why it started?"

"Well, I'm not sure," I lied. Truth be told, I knew exactly why, and I never liked to think about it.

"All I know is that if you can use that in the tournament, we will be unstoppable." He finished his apple. "Now, maybe you can help us with something." I looked up from my food. "What should our gang name be?"

I almost choked. "You people can take down the Shadow Eaters but you can't come up with a gang name?" I started to think though. "What have you guys thought of so far?"

"That's just it, we have absolutely nothing."

I thought about it. "Well, if there was one word to describe this gang, what would it be?"

He snickered. "Crazy. We all are crazy right to our cores."

I thought of how to use that. "I don't think that will work. Anything else?"

He thought. "To be honest, no. Though we all do have something odd about us. I happen to know a grass move. It took me forever to learn it, but I can. Lilly can leap about forty feet into the air. Elric can make himself invisible by running at a great enough speed. KY can hack any computer system. Kykis, who is a ralts, can not only teleport himself, but he can teleport someone else without touching them. And finally, Mark, who is a growlithe, can control the heat of air particles around him, enabling him to spontaneously combust if he needs to."

"How about you use that. You could call yourselves the Unnaturals."

"The Unnaturals." He thought about it. "It has a nice ring to it. I like it. I think the others will as well. Now, the sleeping areas are through the doorway with the bed above it. In there you will find a series of doors. If the door is red, it means someone uses it. If it is blue, then it is unoccupied. You must have run a long way when running from the shadow eaters. You can take a nap if you would like." With that, he left the room.

I finished eating, and went to the dome room. I found the doorway with the bed over it. Walking through, I found myself in a hallway full of more doors. How big was this place? I found the nearest blue door and sat in front of it. These doors creep me out. Experimenting, I stuck a paw into it. It passed right through. Weird. Still, I walked through it.

My feet touched a mat as I went through. It must have triggered the doors color changing system, because when I turned to look at it, it was dark red. The room had a small bed and a dresser, but that was about it. There was also a window. Looking though it, I saw what was left of the pokemon contest hall. Man, Mokuro certainly has gone downhill. Curling up on the bed, I drifted into an uneasy sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

I woke up, the sun hidden behind a large wall of clouds. This wasn't unusual. There was almost never a sunny day in this city. The rain was very pure, though. I quite liked the rain. I found it calming most of the time, though sometimes it would make me sad.

There was a small bell chime outside my door. "Come in?" I said, not sure if it was a door bell.

A ralts came walking in. This must be Kykis. "Good morning," he said. "You probably are already aware of who I am, but introductions are important. I am Kykis. You are Hydra?"

"Yes. What do you need?"

"Lilly is holding a meeting on the bottom floor. I have come to get you."

I nodded, getting up. "Then let's go."

Without warning, there was a bright flash of light, and we were in the restaurant's bottom floor. That's right, he could teleport people without touching them. Everyone else was down here waiting, even the growlithe, whose name was Mark, if I remembered correctly. He was a little scary with a large scar over his left eye.

"Good, now that we are all here," Lilly said, "it is time for the meeting to start.

"First order of business: our name. Hydra has provided us with a rather good idea. The Unnaturals. Does anyone object to this name?" There was no objections. "Good. Moving on, we have a new member. Hydra shall be joining us. Does anyone object to this?"

"No, but I have a question," Mark said. "What's this Psyche Scream you said she could do?"

"I'm still not too sure," I said. "I just know that when I'm scared, I can freeze pokemon around me, and they'll follow my every order. KY thought it was the move psychic, but Eriff proved this wrong when he pointed out that I used it on the Shadow Eaters."

"Interesting, but it must be looked into later." He turned to Lilly. "Continue."

"Well now our members are up to seven. Three more members and we will be an official pokemon gang, able to compete in the tournament. So, we need to go find more members. We will go in pairs, with KY remaining here as the guard." KY got extremely excited about this. "You aren't allowed in the camera room." He slumped in disappointment. "Now, the code today will be sapphire, in honor of our new member. I will be going with Elric. Eriff, you go with Kykis. Hydra, you go with Mark." Great. I get to go with the scary growlithe, instead of the more normal seeming pokemon. Yay me.

The meeting was adjourned, and we all left through the odd doors. Lilly and Elric took the north road, Eriff and Kykis went to the left, and Mark and I went to the right.

"So what are the doors?" I asked him.

"Creations of KY. They are holograms, giving the appearance of a solid object while really there is nothing there."

"Neat." I looked around the deserted street. "So, how are we supposed to find other pokemon around?"

"Well we won't find any around here. This is gang territory. We have to go to Freelands. There are certain areas that are protected for pokemon that don't want to be in a gang. Most gangs will leave them alone, but that is the best way to find new members."

"Won't we be attacked?"

"Not by the protectors. They will only attack if we cause trouble." He made a right turn. "We are about to enter the nearest Freeland territory: Jis. Most of the buildings will be extremely unstable, so try not to touch anything."

I nodded. As we went, the buildings became more damaged, some even reduced to rubble. I couldn't imagine why anyone would want to live here. I had lived in a rather rickety house in the east of town, but at least it stayed standing.

We walked down an alleyway. Mark was very alert, while I was tense. Mark's ear twitched, and he whirled around, spontaneously combusting.

The attacker jumped over us, a hood over his head. He faced us. It was a Scrafty, and it looked like a cornered animal. He sprang to attack again, but this time he got hit in the stomach by Mark's flamethrower.

Since I wasn't the focus attention, and he was the only attacker, I didn't think Psyche Scream was a huge possibility. I stepped in front of Mark. "Stop!"

The attacker seemed to melt into the shadows in the corner of the alley. "Why are you here? This is my home!"

"And we are sorry. We will leave, but we have a question for you."

He was silent for a moment. "Who are you?"

"I'm Hydra, and this is Mark. We don't want to fight."

He stayed. "You've come to find me."

"Well, sort of," Mark said. "We are starting a new gang, and need three more members. Do you want to join?"

"No!" He yelled, startling us both. He shrank even further into the corner. "I'm sorry. I just can't."

I nodded, and smiled at him. "We understand. What's your name?"

"Ore."

"Well, Ore, do you know of anyone who might want to join?"

"The cold building. He's there."

I nodded. "Thanks." We left without another word, leaving him in his corner.

"What's the cold building?" Mark asked.

"I'm guessing the giant glacier." I indicated towards the large structure of ice at the end of the street. It was the only building around that wasn't really destroyed. The only problem was it huge. It would take forever to explore.

We walked up to it, and every step we took towards it, the air got colder. We were nearly to the front door. It was flanked by two ice soldiers. One was an abomasnow while the other was a mamoswine.

"I wonder who built this," Mark said in awe.

"I did."

The wind picked up, and a froslass appeared in front of us. She looked extremely serious. "Well, that isn't entirely accurate. I'm the one who came up with the idea, and am the caretaker of the building, but a lot of people worked for the construction of this building. It was only recently completed, and serves as a sanctuary for those who can't afford to live on the streets. I am Ita."

"Well can we go in?" I asked brightly.

Her eyes narrowed at me. "No."

She floated higher into the air. "I feel an evil presence nearby. I am the guardian of the entrance, and should any evil enter, it will fall on my hands. I cannot afford to risk the safety of the Glacial Tower. You will leave, or I will make you.

"Are you saying were the evil ones?" Mark growled, irritated.

She gave him an icy look. "Are you saying you won't leave?" She thrust her hands out to the statues of ice. "Arise, guardians!"

Both of the statues broke, and the two pokemon, now real, roared in anger and charged at us. There was no way I was going to avoid it now, not with those two colossal pokemon baring down on me. I used Psyche Scream.

Everyone froze. I immediately turned to Mark. "Unfreeze!" He unfroze and blew fire everywhere. I quickly hit him in the side. Run!"

We took off down the street. "Why are we running?" Mark asked.

"They are too big! My Psyche Scream won't last very long, and they were too big to transport away!"

Just as I suspected, Ita's furious screams rang throughout the area. "They damaged the tower! Destroy them!"

We ran faster, but I heard the loud bounding of the other pokemon. They were much bigger than us, so they covered ground faster. They were going to catch us. I couldn't use Psyche Scream again on them. It would take too much energy.

As quick as a flash, Ore came flying out of his alley. "Run! I'll hold them off!"

"No!" I said, stopping in my tracks. We couldn't leave him behind.

His hood was off, and the top of his Mohawk was brown and silver. He held his hands out. The pokemon were getting closer. Just before they reached us, a huge stone wall shot out of the ground, blocking them from us. I heard them run into it, but they didn't break through.

"Run!" He said again.

"Not without you!" I yelled back. He looked back at me, then nodded. We turned from the stone wall and ran, hearing the angry cries of our attackers behind us. It was safe to say we weren't getting into Glacial Tower any time soon, and that Ore couldn't go home.

We made it back to the restaurant, where we quickly got inside. We were about to rest on the floor when a beam of ice, fire and electricity flew at us, we jumped out of the way. Stones came out of the ground and started circling Ore.

"Whoa! Whoa! KY, calm down! It's just us!" Mark yelled.

KY came from his hiding place, bowing over and over again. "I'm so sorry Mr. Mark! I was starting to get drowsy and you all startled me when you entered! Please forgive me! I didn't mean it!"

Ore still looked ready to attack. He was starting to look like a cornered animal again. "Who are you?"

"KY, at your service." He bowed to Ore.

Then, startling us all again, the boards from the door got blasted through the holographic door, causing us all to jump and causing Ore to send his stones flying through the door. Blasts of water blew them away and started attacking blindly into the restaurant. Judging from the ferociousness of the attack, I'm guessing it was hydro pump.

"Lilly, calm down!" Mark yelled.

"Sorry!" She said entering the room with Elric and Eriff right next to her, Kykis not far behind. Laid across the back of the eons was an absol. My stomach leapt to my throat. Blood was everywhere.

They gently set him down. There was a decent sized cut in his side. "The Geoaxes found us and attacked," Lilly said. "We had just met Absolum here, and he got hit in the fight. They weren't using attacks, they were using weapons. KY, get bandages now!"

KY flew at extreme speed to the top floor using a small motion censored hatch in the ceiling. Kykis disappeared, probably wanting to follow him. Lilly gently washed the blood off of the Absol. She looked away. "I can't do this. Eriff!"

He rushed forward, having gotten a towel from the bar at the far side of the room. "Absolum, bite down on this." The pokemon took the cloth in his mouth. Eriff took a deep breath, and started inspecting the wound with his paw. Absolum tensed up and bit down on the towel.

"This wound is pretty deep, and it feels like a piece of metal is stuck in him. Their weapons probably weren't clean, so if we don't get that out now, he could get a serious infection. KY!"

KY and Kykis returned, KY holding loads of bandages. "Get some wine from the bar!" KY flew over to the bar, grabbing a green bottle. He brought it back over.

"Wine? How will that help?" I asked.

"Alcohol is needed to clean the wound. I can't get proper medicine because we don't have a black market dealer yet." He turned to Kykis. "I need you to remove the blade."

Kykis showed slight fear at this, but nodded. He stepped forward, and held his small hands out to the wound. Absolum howled in pain, and there was a horrible squelching noise as the blade started to be psychically pulled from the wound. Lilly paled. "Oh my gosh, I'm going to be sick!" She ran out the front door as fast as she could.

The blade was soon out, but he had lost a lot of blood and it was still coming. Thank goodness the piece wasn't very big, only about a third of the size of my paw. Eriff grabbed half of the huge wad of cloth and pressed it on the wound. He then pulled the cork out of the wine bottle with his teeth. "This is going to sting." He poured a bit of it on the other half. Removing the blood soaked half, he pressed the alcohol cloth onto the wound. Absolum howled again.

"Lilly! I need water!"

She came shakily back into the room. She started rinsing the sound off. KY had gone and gotten some more bandages. Once Eriff was satisfied that the wound was clean enough, he wrapped it.

"We need to get a proper healer," he said. "Kykis, go get Gani! I know she hates teleporting, but we need her!" Kykis nodded, and in two flashes of light, a Meganium was standing in the room.

"How dare you do that to me!" She yelled. From the sound of her voice and the slight weariness in her face, she was an older woman.

"We need help!" Elric said. "He's been hurt, badly!"

"Shut your trap! I can see that!" She walked over. "Yes, I can sense he is rather weak. I'm not as strong as I used to be, so don't blame me if he isn't perfectly okay." She placed a paw on the wound, and waves of pink started pulsing from her into Absolum. She closed her eyes, concentrating hard. Soon green waves mixed with the pink ones.

Finally she stopped, breathing heavily. "There. The wound is clean, and won't be infected, plus it has mostly stopped bleeding, but I couldn't close it or help regain him much blood. Make sure you get him some water and food before he falls asleep. Now take me back home." Kykis nodded, and in two more flashes, she was gone, and Kykis looked very tired.

KY soon had some oran berries and water in front of Absolum. He ate some of the berries, though it was obvious he didn't want to, and then drank some of the water. He closed his eyes, and soon fell asleep.

"I think he'll be okay," Lilly said. She finally took notice of Ore. "Where you the one to attack me?"

He started slowly backing away, stones still floating at the ready. "I didn't mean to. I'm sorry." You could tell he was close to freaking out.

She smiled. "All I was going to say was nice aim. How did you do that?"

"That was simply stone edge. I've always been able to control rocks, ever since I was little, which is why I'm named Ore. It's been a curse all my life."

"And the plot thickens as another Unnatural emerges," Elric said. "We all know what you mean. Everyone here has some crazy trick up our sleeve. It means you'll fit right in. Kykis can take Absolum to the infirmary while you can go find a room. You look pretty tired." He looked at the ceiling. "Sapphire." The ceiling panel lowered, and while Kykis teleported himself and Absolum away, we rode up there.

Elric led Ore to the rooms. Lilly sighed. "I'm glad that didn't last long. I can't stand wounds like that." I could tell she was refraining to mention how we all had heard when she had emptied the contents of her stomach outside, but I didn't bring it up, and neither did Eriff. "I'm going to get some food then take a quick rest. Maybe will take another outing later tonight." She walked off to the kitchen, leaving me with Eriff and Mark.

"That was pretty impressive," I told Eriff.

"Yeah, well, if you want to be a breeder, you need to know these things. Though he'd probably have died if we didn't know Gani. She's the best healer around, though she lives on the forest outside of the city. Since she hates teleporting, it usually takes her a while to get her here. Teleporting her is really hard to do for some reason. It takes up a lot of Kykis's energy." He smiled at me and Mark. "Well at least you two were successful."

"Yeah, not really," Mark said. "Ore originally didn't want to join, and told us to go to a new building called the Glacial Tower, where we could find someone who would help. Unfortunately their stupid caretaker freaked out and we couldn't get in. When she attacked us, Ore stepped in and helped, fleeing with us. It's more like he can't go home now, so he's going to stay with us."

"I see. Well you two had best get some sleep. We probably will go on another outing later tonight, since this morning's endeavors were much shorter than we had anticipated." He didn't need to tell me twice. I went back to my room and crashed on my bed, ready for some more sleep. THe only thing that nagged at the back of my mind is what Ita said. Who was that evil presence, and why where they near Glacial Tower?


	5. Chapter 5

When I awoke again, night had just about fallen, and the street lamps were on. I walked out of my room to see if anyone was up. To my surprise, Absolum was walking out of the infirmary and heading towards the kitchen. "Hey, Absolum!"

He looked over. "Good evening. You were the Eevee who was downstairs in the restaurant, correct? I'm sorry we didn't officially get to greet each other."

"That's okay. I'm Hydra."

"An interesting name," he said, continuing to the kitchen. "Care to join me?"

I nodded, and followed. He looked around the large food supply, and settled for some apples and herbs. I ate a few watmel berries. "How can you eat those herbs? They're way to bitter for my taste."

"I agree, but since I have a hole in my side, they are doing some good." He took another bite. "So did they recruit you as well?"

"Sort of. I was running from the Shadow Eaters and they saved me. They then explained the gang tournament that's coming up and I decided to help."

"Ah, that's interesting. So do they not have enough members to be an official gang?"

"Nope. There's nine of us, including you and Ore."

"I'm not sure you want me around."

"Why not?"

He stopped eating. "I'm dangerous."

"Try me."

He looked away. "No. I don't like talking about it."

"And I respect that." I rolled a watmel berry over to him. "Relax a little. There's a reason we're called the Unnaturals. While we may be odd, we're sweet on the inside."

He smiled slightly, and ate the berry. Then Lilly walked in. "There you two are. How's your side? Good enough to go out?"

"As long as I'm not cut again."

"Good. I'm particularly interested in this Glacial Tower. We're going to go there and see if we can get in. Mark isn't coming this time since he was the one to burn the place."

"What are we going there for?" Absolum asked.

"Well a few things. I want to see if there is a black market dealer in that Freeland. Supposedly there is someone in the tower willing to help us, so we are going to look for him. I'm also curious about such a structure being made, and the evil presence that was mentioned. I'll fill you in more on the way."

She led us to the bottom floor and out the door. It appeared the others weren't coming. As we headed back towards Jis, Lilly explained the situation to Absolum, including the tournament. I was nagged by an odd question. "How are the lights on?"

"The street lights?" Lilly asked, looking around. "I'm pretty sure one of the Freelands make sure they stay working."

The glacial tower was almost in view when we heard a faint cry for help. We turned to see a breloom stumbling along. "Help...Anyone...Please." He collapsed on the ground.

We ran over. "Hey, are you okay?" Lilly asked.

"Shadow Eaters...Kinarin...Take over." He was too tired to say much else.

"I'm going to run and get the others," Lilly said. "Run to Kinarin. See if you can slow down the Shadow Eaters!" She took off at a great speed, while we ran down the street, Absolum in the lead.

"What's Kinarin?" I asked.

"A Freeland, known for plant life. Going into a Freeland is one thing, but everyone knows you just don't take over them. At least it isn't the Geoaxes." I refrained from mentioning how the Shadow Eaters were worse.

We made a left, and came face to face with a battle. The Shadow Eaters were dispersed around the area, while some grass type pokemon were engaging them. Standing atop a large stone statue of a tree was a Lilligant with a Tangrowth and Trophius at her sides. She surveyed the battle with a certain wisdom. Dahk was trying his hardest to reach her.

My eyes narrowed. This was no time for Psyche Scream. I was scared, but I was going to fight.

Then Absolum stepped in front of me. "Allow me. Please step back." I did so, and he stepped forward. He paused for a moment, then he started radiating a purple aura. "Dark destruction!"

The wave radiated out in front of him, sending a severe crack through the middle of the paved road. Every eye snapped to him. I understood. He had an unnatural ability as well. Being an Absol, he could sense disasters, but he was also able to create them. Though this seemed to leave him very tired.

Dahk smiled, focusing on us. "Oh, hello girlie. I didn't expect to see you again. I'm really surprised pretty boy didn't die. The Geoaxes just aren't reliable. I knew that you all would go looking for members, so I situated them in one of the Freelands. They were supposed to kill Lilly, but they weren't able to. They couldn't even kill an untrained Absol."

"You hired them to attack?" I asked, not sure why I was surprised.

"Of course. We can't have any meddlers in the tournament. We were on such a roll we decided to come and take over this Freeland."

"Not on our watch," Absolum said, ready to fight, even though he looked like he was ready to collapse.

"That's quite enough."

We turned to look at the lilligant. She had hopped down from the statue, and was walking over. "I appreciate the concern, but this is my Freeland, and I'm going to protect it."

Dahk laughed. "Oh? If it's yours, then how is it free?"

"Enough of your pitiful nonsense. We shall do this the old fashioned way. I against you. The winner keeps the area."

"I don't think so!"

We all looked up to see Lilly jump off a building at Dahk. "You're going to pay for all of this!"

Dark didn't have time to move. She rammed headfirst into him, sending him flying. The other members of the Unnaturals where not far behind. They started engaging the other members of the Shadow Eaters.

Lilly didn't really have much left to do. She had hit Dahk really hard. He picked himself up, which was quite surprising. "You're dead when the tournament starts."

"And you'll be dead last. Get lost."

He growled. "Shadow Eaters! Retreat!" The gang ran down the street, taunted by the many triumphant cheers from the pokemon who lived here.

The lilligant walked over. "I do thank you for your help, but it was slightly unnecessary. I would not have lost."

"Yeah, well, we had a bit of unfinished business to take care of," Lilly said. I had the feeling that she had heard what Dahk had tried to do. "I'm Lilly, by the way, leader of the Unnaturals."

"I am Hana. We are very grateful that you assisted us. How did you know they were attacking?"

"A breloom had ran all the way to Jis looking for help. He's resting back at our headquarters right now."

"Oh, well that's good. I know who you are talking about. His name is Fort. Make sure he stays safe."

"We will." Lilly turned to the gang. "Looks like we don't get to see Glacial Tower just yet. That will be the job for tomorrow. For now, let's get back to the base. " We all nodded, and we made our way back to our part of town.

Once in the restaurant, KY greeted us. "Welcome back. Did we fend off the Shadow Eaters?"

"Easily," Lilly said, "How is Fort?"

"The breloom? He's fine. He fell asleep in the infirmary. I don't think he will be joining us, though."

"Well that's a bummer. We're going to visit glacial tower tomorrow. I want you, Hydra, Ore, Absolum, and me to go."

"But I want to see the tower!" Eriff said indignantly.

"Hush. Don't forget, the caretaker already has a bone to pick with us. It would be best if you and Mark stayed here. Kykis, I want you to see if you can find us a black market dealer." He nodded, and teleported away.

"Did he go to find one right now?" I asked.

"Nah, he just went to bed," Elric said, "which sounds like a great idea. Sapphire." The panel lowered, and we all went up to bed, resting up for another attempt to enter Glacial Tower. Third time's a charm, right?


	6. Chapter 6

I woke up rather early, despite the busy day we had just had. I walked out of my room and headed first to the camera room. I was amazing how they had every part of the restaurant covered, but I hadn't seen any camera's yet. I sighed. I was the only one up and about so far.

I went to the bottom floor of the restaurant and started checking it out. While there was the usual things you would find in a restaurant, such as tables, rags, glasses, plates, and silverware, there was a lot of things out of place, such as a laptop case with a pineapple in it, a blue streamer and some ballet shoes, and a neon green GameCube controller.

"It's weird, isn't it?" I jumped as Elric walked over. I hadn't heard the panel come down. "We didn't put any of this here. We found it all when we found the place. It makes you wonder if it has a purpose. I would have suspected you to sleep longer."

"I had gotten enough sleep during the day."

"Yes, we don't really have a natural sleeping schedule. Missions tend to be at random times, mostly to throw off any attackers, and since we aren't fans of waiting around." He started towards the door. "Come on. I can use your help with something."

"What is it?" I asked as we left and started down the street.

"We are going to go get information on the Glacial Tower. An old friend of mine lives in the north side of town. I have a feeling she assisted in the construction of it."

We walked in silence through the damaged streets of the city. It was very apparent why people left. Nobody remembers exactly how the city got destroyed. Everyone just called it "the apocalypse." All the buildings were damaged, some were destroyed, there was little plant life, and roads were usually cracked or filled with potholes. What had happened?

As we got closer to the north side of the city, the air started to get colder. We arrived at an old factory, and the cold air was coming from it.

"So who is this friend of yours?" I asked.

"See for yourself." He pushed the door open, and cold air washed over us. The inside was coated in a fine layer of ice. The assembly lines had empty boxes on them, which probably once had something in them. in the middle of the room was a huge mound of pillows, and atop of that was a large blue dinosaur pokemon. She looked like she was asleep.

"Aurora, wake up," Elric said, nudging her face with his paw.

Her left eye lazily opened. "Oh, hello Elric. What do I owe this visit?"

"I need to talk to you about something."

She yawned and stood up to her full height, which was close to eleven feet tall. She poked two pillows, and the ice on them broke off. After pushing them over two us, she resituated herself on her pile. "Well you might as well make yourselves comfortable."

I sat on the pillow, expecting it to be freezing, but it was only a little cool. Aurora smiled at me. "Well now I've never met you before. Are you a new member of the gang?"

"Yes," I said weakly. "I'm Hydra."

She chuckled. "I'm guessing you've never seen an aurauros before?" I shook my head. "Well, that isn't entirely surprising. Most of us are extinct. Not to mention we are native to the Kalos region. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one not living there."

"Where is the Kalos region?"

"Oh, far away from here. I was left here when my last trainer ran from the apocalypse. But that's okay, since I find it quite peaceful here."

"I hate to interrupt," Elric said, "but we do need to ask you something. Did you help build glacial tower?"

"Oh, yes. It's such a nice building, isn't it? I was given a room there, but I just couldn't leave this place. The reason I've been so tired lately was because of building it. It took up a lot of energy."

"Can you think of anyone who lives in the tower who would want to join our gang?" I asked.

"Well," she thought for a moment, "I'm not sure. I only met the people who helped build it. I'm not sure who all is there now. Auroc might help you, but I warn you, he's not the most social person."

"We can't get in, though," I said. "We acidentally blasted the front door with fire."

"Ah, I bet Ita got in your way, didn't she? Well she'll let you in on my request." She stood up. "Shall we be going?"

We exited the building, and started to make the trek back to Jis, which, unfortunately, was on the south side of town. We crossed through our territory, but we didn't go by the restaurant. It was fully light out when we reached the tower. Or, at least, as light as it gets when it's cloudy. I couldn't help but feel a little guilty that we weren't following Lilly's plan.

Ita was there immediately. "Aurora! What a pleasant surprise! Have you come to-" She cut off when she saw me. "You!"

"Now Ita," Aurora said, "these are friends of mine, and are permitted into the tower at any time. They are looking for new members for their gang, and are permitted to talk to anyone."

She crossed her arms. "Do you find it wise to let _gang members_ into such a place? Not to mention I still feel an evil presence nearby."

"Well then we best not let anyone else in right now." Ita huffed and went back inside. Aurora turned to us. "I'm going to wait outside. This is your gang. If I go in, everyone will want to join because you know me."

"We won't be too long," Elric said. We walked into the tower.

The first thing that struck me was how monumental the place was. This thing had to be at least forty to sixty stories tall, and was completely made out of ice. What was even more impressive was the fact that none of it looked melted at all. Everything was as solid as metal.

We walked up the stairs. "So who are we going to talk to?" I asked.

"I would start by finding Auroc. Aurora said he might help us."

We looked around for anyone who could help us find Auroc, but no one seemed to be on this floor. What made this worse was we couldn't find the stairs. We were lost on a single floor.

"Are you two lost?"

We turned, relieved to finally have found someone. The pokemon who had addressed us grinned. "You've been by my pool of water about seven times now."

We stared, slightly awestruck by the pokemon. He was a milotic, but was a different color. His tail was orange and yellow, and the hair that came from his head was silver instead of red. He was a shiny pokemon.

Elric was the first one to speak. "Yeah, we're lost. Do you know where we can find the stairs and someone named Auroc?"

He looked puzzled. "How do you know his name?"

"Aurora told us," I said.

He nodded. "I see. Well I hate to disappoint you, but he isn't here right now. What do you need him for?"

"We were told he would want to join our gang," Elric said.

"He might." Then he smiled again. "I can't believe how rude I'm being. I'm Zura, one of the creators of the tower."

"I'm Elric, and this is Hydra."

"Do you know when Auroc is getting back?" I asked.

He shook his head. "No. I do know of someone else who might be willing to help you. He was another one of the founders of the tower. He doesn't use his real name. Most of us call him the Ice Prince."

"Can you take us to him?" I asked.

He floated out of his pool of water. "I suppose. He isn't a fan of visitors, so I'm not sure how he will react."

He led us to the stairs, which had been nearby the whole time, and led us very high up. We stopped at the third to last floor. "Ah, there he is," Zura said, pointing his tail at the figure down the hall.

I wasn't even entirely sure if he was a pokemon. He wore a long cape that was wrapped around his body, which also had a hood that covered his head. He was walking rather fast. I wondered vaguely where he was going.

"Ice Prince," Zura said, "we have visitors who would like to speak with you."

The Prince made his way to us and stopped. "What do you need?"

"We don't really _need_ anything," I said, "but we wanted to ask you a question. We are a part of a new pokemon gang, and are looking for more members. Zura said that you might be willing to join."

He looked at the milotic, then back at me. "I'm afraid I have to disappoint you." He walked away without another word.

"I thought he might do that," Zura said. "Well there are still plenty of other people in the tower. Why don't we start with this hall?" He and Elric started walking down the hall, talking about the different pokemon that might want to join. I looked back at the stairs, which the Ice Prince had taken. I ran to the stairs, hurrying to catch up with him.

"Wait up!" I said.

He stopped and turned around. I caught my breath when I reached him. "Do you know anything about someone named Auroc?"

There was a pause. "I do. How do you know about him?"

"Aurora told me." Something was starting to bother me. "Why is it strange that I know his name?"

"He's not around much, and when he is around he doesn't talk much." He continued walking down the stairs. "So what does one do in a pokemon gang?"

"Well, I'm not entirely sure, since I just joined myself. At the moment we are trying to get enough members to enter in the gang tournament. We only need one more member and we'll have enough."

He nodded. "I see. What is the tournament for?"

"It's to determine the leader of the gangs. Should a good gang rise to power, then the city could become less violent, but if a bad gang wins, then there will be a revolution."

"A risky move. Who came up with it?"

"I don't know." We were about halfway down the stairs now. I stopped. "Do you hear that?"

He listened for a moment. "Get back!"

There was a loud crash, and steam filled the room. When it cleared, the Ice Prince was in front of me, a shield of ice protecting us. The shield shattered, revealing the large hole in the wall. "What was that?" I asked.

To answer my question, multiple ground and rock type pokemon flooded in from the hole, some running up the stairs and some running down. Then a nidoking came in last, smiling cruelly while holding a spear in his hand. I knew who he was. He was War, leader of the Geoaxes.

"Good day, _Ice Prince_," War said. "I'm glad you're looking well."

"Go away, now," the Ice Prince said.

"You know, I don't think I want to. So how's life? Enjoying the lie you live every day?"

An icicle sprang out of the ground, ready to impale War in the chest, but he moved out of the way. "I struck a nerve, didn't I?"

"What do you want?"

"A fight. Take off the robe. I may not know you, but I know about you. You are nothing but a coward."

They had been so busy focusing on each other War didn't notice I had started to attack. My trump card hit him square in the chest. He doubled over and I stepped in front of the ice prince. "You use real weapons while fighting and you dare call him a coward?"

He growled at me. "That was a big mistake." He stomped his foot on the ground, and white rings appeared above me. Rocks started to fall. Rock slide. I didn't have time to be scared. I had to react. I dodged the rocks, some only narrowly missing me.

After the attack was over, War's smile got bigger. "Not bad, kid. Now let's try round two." He lifted his spear up, and a wave of black sludge rose in front of him, coming to crash down on me. Sludge wave. I wasn't going to be able to dodge it.

The Ice Prince was in front of me immediately. His arm flew out from under his robe, and he punched the wave of poison, his fist glowing blue. It froze instantly. Ice punch. His fast movement had caused his hood to fall off. He was a lucario.

He pushed the cape over his shoulders, revealing the rest of him. "If you want a fight, that's what you will get."

"Oh, I want a fight, but killing you quickly would be so much easier." His eyes flashed red, and both my body and the Ice Prince's went rigid. Disable.

"I know of your power," War said, circling the Ice Prince. "Yet you try so hard to hide it, just like you hide behind that tough guy act. All you are is an anti-social loser, and I can't wait for you to perish." He brought his spear back, ice forming around the tip, and he stabbed the Ice Prince in the side.

"No!" I screamed. I was immediately able to move again, and both War and the Ice Prince were frozen. Psyche scream. "Go away!" I screamed at war. He vanished in a flash of blue light. I then turned to the Ice Prince. "Unfreeze!"

He stumbled and fell to the ground. "That hurt." Blood was everywhere. I had used Psyche Scream fast enough that he hadn't been completely impaled, but it was still really bad. I had to do something.

He weakly lifted his hand to the wound. "I'm fine. Don't worry about me." Ice spread across the wound, sealing it up. "Go find your friend and get out of here."

Just as this was said, Elric came running down the stairs. "Hydra! We have to go! The Geoaxes are here for us! If we leave, they leave!"

I got my head under the Ice Prince's arm. "I got you. Let's get you back to our base. There is a flareon there who can help you, and we know a Meganium who is a really good healer."

"I'm fine, really," he croaked, clutching his side in the effort it took to speak.

"I'm going to get help!" Elric said. In a yellow flash, he was gone, having run down the stairs.

I started slowly pulling the Ice Prince to the hole in the wall. "Hey, I'm sorry."

"For what?" I didn't really see what he could be sorry for, but he looked like he wanted to fall asleep, which I wasn't going to let happen until I knew that he was okay.

"War was right. The Ice Prince is a lie, a mask I put on to make me feel stronger. I am Auroc. You probably already guessed that." To be honest, I did. If Zura hadn't been surprised that we had known his name, I probably wouldn't have figured it out.

"Well we were told you might want to join our gang. Do you accept?"

He chuckled weakly. "Since the Ice Prince has been defeated so easily, I have nothing left to remain here for. I will gladly join." He flinched in pain and clutched his side. I needed help fast.

"Look, down there!" A voice called. I looked up in horror as the other members of Geoaxe came running down the stairs at us. I tried to move faster, but I just couldn't. I closed my eyes, waiting for them to reach us.

Then, everything was quiet. I opened my eyes to find that we were now in the bottom floor of the restaurant. Everyone was around. Absolum, Lilly, Eriff, and Elric picked him up. "Let's go! Glacier!" The panel lowered, and we rushed Auroc to the infirmary.

Eriff quickly started tending to the wound, breaking the ice off and starting to stop the bleeding. "What on earth happened?"

"Hydra and I went to get information on Glacial Tower," Elric said. "One of my old friends was able to get us in, and the Geoaxes attacked."

"Well you couldn't have mentioned you were going?" Lilly said. "Lucky for you that isn't important right now. Right now we need to focus on this lucario."

Eriff's eyes widened. "No. We have a major problem."

"What?" Mark asked.

"His skin is freezing, and is starting to turn a little blue. He must have been stabbed with something ice related and by a poison type, because he's gotten arctic poisoning, and if we don't get Gani here soon, he will most likely die today."


	7. Chapter 7

"What do you mean he's going to die?" I exclaimed. "And what's arctic poisoning?"

"A very rare disease," Eriff said. "Poison and ice aren't seen together often. But, should an open wound be caused by both, you get an infection. The infection will eventually spread to his blood and freeze it, killing him. He needs help now, help that I can't give him."

"Well who can?" Lilly asked. "Could Gani do it?"

"No. Not alone at least. To cure it, you need a pokemon with the magma armor ability and a pokemon that knows heal pulse. While she does know heal pulse, we need to find a pokemon that has the magma armor ability."

"Then I'm going to look," I said.

"Take KY with you," Lilly said. "Kykis, teleport to Gani but have her walk here." He nodded, and in a flash, he was gone.

KY and I quickly left the restaurant. "This way!" He quickly flew down the street to the right. "The Volc's are this way. They are a gang full of fire types. If anyone will have the magma armor ability, they'll be there."

We moved as fast as we could, but it still took us a while to get there. I was completely out of breath. This area had steam rising from the cracks in the ground. "Where is everyone?"

Sticky silk struck us from behind and pinned us to the ground. String shot. Fire types flooded from the buildings, surrounding us. A blaziken walked forward. "Now what do we have here? Some trespassers?"

"We need help!" I yelled. "We need to find someone with the magma armor ability!"

"Now why would you need something like that?" He said. "I can't think of a reason."

"Arctic poisoning has struck one of our members," KY explained.

"Now that's something you don't hear every day." The blaziken thought for a moment. "You said one of your members had it. What gang are you in?"

"The Unnaturals," I said.

"Oh, you're in that new gang that's been messing with the Shadow Eaters! I've heard of you guys." He thought for a moment longer. "Well, if you are telling the truth, then you're friend needs help immediately." He nodded at the lampent which was next to him, and it blew some fire onto the string shot and we were freed.

"Are you sure about this, Kan?" A houndoom asked him.

"Yes. We aren't heartless. Besides, it's not like these two are going to attack me. Karu, I'm taking you with me." A magcargo nodded. The blaziken, Kan, turned to us. "Lead the way."

We started to make our way back to the base. It was slow going, since Karu couldn't move very fast. Every step felt like it was taking far too long. We had to move fast. If only Kykis could show up and teleport us there.

After too long of a walk, we made it to the restaurant. Gani was already there with Kykis. "Now how on earth are you young ones late? If I can get from my home in the forest to here before you, then you are slower than a drugged slowpoke!"

"We're sorry, ma'am," Kan said. "Now, where is this fellow?"

The panel from the ceiling lowered, and we all got on. We went to the infirmary, where everyone was still waiting. Auroc was an ugly shade of blue, and the wound had frozen pieces of skin around it. He looked like he was in a lot of pain.

"Oh dear," Gani said. "This is more serious than I thought. You, Magcargo, get up onto his chest." Karu nodded, and climbed onto Auroc. Gani closed her eyes, and pink waves started pulsing through Auroc. We left so she could concentrate.

"I can't believe you were telling the truth," Kan said. "Sorry we didn't get here faster."

"Aren't you the second in command of the Volc's?" Lilly asked.

"That's right. The name's Kan."

"Lilly. Why did you come and help us? I'm not comfortable with you at our base."

He smiled. "Wouldn't you?" He walked over to the panel. "Don't worry. Revealing where a base is to another gang is strictly forbidden, and we won't break that rule. Unless you give us a reason to attack, you'll be fine. Send Karu back when he's done." The panel lowered, and he was gone.

We waited for Gani to be finished. When she came out, she looked absolutely exhausted. "There. The poison is gone, so he'll live, but he must get warmer. His temperature was becoming critical when we started. The magcargo isn't allowed to leave him until he's back to normal. I'm in no condition to go home right now, so I'm going to rest." She headed off towards the rooms.

Lilly sighed with relief. "So much danger in such a short amount of time, and we finally seem to have a break. Now that he's going to be okay, we finally have ten members, so we can start preparing for the tournament."

"Speaking of which," I said, "what happened to Fort?"

We all looked at each other, not sure where the Breloom had gone. Then, to answer our question, he walked out of the camera room, yawning. "Sorry, I must have fallen asleep. Did you need me for something?"

"What were you doing in the camera room?" KY asked, indignant that he missed the chance to go in there.

"I was just admiring the security. It's very advanced." He looked at all of us. "So you still only have nine members? I guess I could join."

"Actually, we have ten now," Ore said. "The last member is in the infirmary."

He blinked. "So you don't need me then?"

"No, but we still want you," Mark said.

He looked us over, seeming conflicted by something. "I would join, but I was the second in command to Hana. I would have to ask her first."

"We understand," I said. "You know where to find us if you want to. Make sure you don't tell anyone else, though."

He nodded, and also took the panel down. Eriff voiced the question we were all thinking. "So what now?"

Lilly smiled. "I think it's time we used the training room."

She led us through the doorway with a sword over it. Inside was another control panel and a standard sized battle arena. She stood in front of us. "We haven't used this room yet. KY made some modifications to it, but no one has actually done battle on this field. I will be one of the two going first."

"I'll go," Elric said, grinning. "We haven't fought in a long time."

"Hey, no fair!" Eriff said. "I learned a grass type move so I could beat her! I want to try it out!"

"Neither of you will battle me."

We turned to Lilly. Her expression was interesting. Curious, but dead serious. "We are all unnatural battlers, correct?" We nodded. "Now think of all the members we have. Elric, Eriff, KY, Kykis, Mark, Ore, Absolum, Auroc, and myself have all been in battle where another member of the gang has been present."

"Yeah, so?" Ore asked.

"Think about it. Each of us has some odd battling skill, and we've all seen it. None of you newer members have seen KY's secret weapon, since his tri attack usually does the trick, but we have, and while you've not seen him use it in battle, you have seen Kykis's special trick. There is only one member who no one has seen fight yet."

All eyes snapped to me. "That's right," KY said. "Other than her Psyche Scream, no one has seen her in combat."

I looked down. "I never felt like I was a very good battler. That's what my trainer told me, at least."

"Well I want to assess your skills for myself," Lilly said. "I will be your opponent."

I was pretty scared by this. There was no way I could beat Lilly. But I couldn't refuse. "Fine."

We walked onto opposite sides of the field. "You go first," Lilly said.

I was about to attack, but hesitated. I knew one move that was really good, but I couldn't bring myself to attack her with it. "I can't, I might hurt you."

"Hydra, whatever you can dish out, I can take. This is to assess your skills. You can't go easy."

"Okay." I stood in my stance of attack, which was my left paws slightly ahead of my right, and my front paws closer together. "Go, toxic!"

A wave of purple energy radiated out from me. My trainer said my toxic was unique. It wasn't any stronger than any other toxic, but instead of it being released as a liquid or gas, it was radiated as a wave of energy. It was much harder to dodge.

But Lilly did.

Her body melted into water, and she fell to the floor, the wave just barely missing her. This was acid armor. The liquid moved in a flash, and she reformed, jumping into the air. "You can do better than that!" She swung her tail around, and I jumped out of the way, immediately sending a shadow ball at her, which she batted away.

"Keep going!" Lilly commanded, leaping a good thirty feet in the air. I landed as well, creating a shield of trump cards. Lilly struck them and was thrown aside.

She got back up. "Not bad, but I won't lose." She split into multiple copies of herself. Double team. But then something really weird happened. She had split into five copies of herself, but then she split into twenty-five copies. She must have used double team again, causing all her copies to split as well.

I crouched down, stars swirling around my body. Swift. Before I could do anything, a torrent of water came crashing down on me. Almost all of it was fake, but the real one hit me really hard, sending me flying back.

Without missing a beat, Lilly was in the air, and came spinning down, her tail having turned into metal. Iron tail. I tried to move out of the way, but she nailed me head on. I was done.

Lilly smiled. "I'm quite surprised. While you do have the tendency to hesitate when attacking, you aren't bad. And that was an amazing toxic." I noticed something odd. She was shaking. My toxic had hit her.

"No joke," Eriff said. "I've never seen anything like it."

Elric was smiling as well. "After a bit of practice, we'll be unstoppable. But there is a matter we must discuss."

"Ah, yes, partnering," Lilly said. "That will be loads of fun to do, but we can't fully finish until Auroc is well again. See, everyone here must be able to work with every member perfectly, should any circumstance arise. That means that you must be able to read your team mate and combine your attacks fluently to assure victory. Those of us who were originally in the group already have this down, which means we will need to partner up with those who don't have this skill. I suggest the most random combinations to start." She thought for a moment. "I want Ore with Kykis, Absolum with Eriff, Hydra with KY, and Auroc, when he gets better, with Mark. Elric and I will serve as the control group."

I looked at my partner. I wasn't sure how compatible any of these groups are, but there was a certain air about this, something that just made it feel right. Lilly could arrange us any way she wanted, but we would all work perfectly together. I felt bad for the other gangs. We were going to kick there butts.


	8. Chapter 8

"So how should we approach this?" KY asked me. After being paired up, Lilly told us to go find a desolate part in the city and train. KY and I were in Jis, the Glacial Tower visible from where we were. We planned on going by there afterwards.

"Well, I don't know how you fight. What moves do you know?"

"Tri attack, signal beam, magic coat, and dark pulse."

I thought about this. "What's your secret?"

He looked confused. "What do you mean?"

"Your unnatural skill: what is it?"

He looked away. "If I tell you, I want you not to tell anyone else until I say so. My trick is very draining on me and I can't use it very often."

I nodded. "What is it?"

He looked back. "I have two tricks. The first one, which isn't too draining, is that I can choose which status my tri attack can inflict. If I want them to be frozen, I focus on the ice part, and if a status occurs, it will be frozen."

"That's neat. What's your second ability?"

He took a deep breath. "I can change my ability at will."

"Wait, what?" I thought I had been prepared for his answer. I was wrong. "You can just change your ability? You're capable of having adaptability, download, and analytic, right?"

"Yes, and I can switch to any one of those. I tend to favor adaptability, but in the last true battle I was in, I switched to download, and haven't switched again."

I was just amazed. "That's incredible. Why don't you want people to know about it?"

"The same reason I ended up joining this gang. Loads of other gangs wanted me. The ability to just change abilities astounded them. But they pictured someone who could switch multiple times in a battle with no consequence. I can switch at most two times in a battle. It just takes too much energy. I couldn't give them what they wanted. Then I met Lilly, and she informed me she was forming a gang. I immediately declined, but she insisted on me telling her why I wouldn't join. Once she heard what I could do, she told me what she expected."

"What was that?"

He smiled. "She expected that I do the best I can. Hearing this after being pressured for so long was very refreshing, and joining her meant that I wouldn't be pressured anymore."

I nodded. "It is a cool ability. I wish I could do something as cool as that."

He looked at me funnily. "What about your Psyche Scream?"

I looked down, my ears falling. "When it first happened, I was absolutely horrified. I thought I had completely frozen time and would be alone forever. I begged for them to unfreeze, and they did. Then I started figuring out I could make whoever I froze do what I commanded, but after the command, they unfroze. You would think it is something really cool, but it's been a curse. I can't control it, and sometimes I can't control what happens to the people I use it on. There have been moments when I've frozen someone and I couldn't get them to unfreeze for a long time. Every time it happens, I'm completely powerless, and wonder if they will ever be unfrozen again. When this happens to someone, they get scared of me, and tell everyone about what a monster I am."

"Have you ever tried to learn to control it?"

"Yeah, but it just wouldn't work. It's like it has a mind of its own. The only thing that is consistent with it is it happens when I'm scared. I've tried to be more brave, to see if I could stop it, but I just can't."

"Well at least now you don't have to be scared alone." I looked at him, and he winked at me. "You got us now. We can all freak out together." I smiled, and nodded.

He moved a decent distance away. "Now we should probably get started on our battle strategies. I think I have a good idea. I simply want you to use your toxic on me."

"Why?" I didn't want to poison him.

"Relax. I have an interesting theory. Your toxic comes in the form of a wave of energy. How long can you keep a wave of energy going like that?"

"I don't know." Every time I had used it, once the wave was created, I just let it move towards the target. I never actually tried to hold the wave.

"Well my theory is that if you hold the wave and I am the right distance away, I can use my magic coat we can make it even stronger by causing constructive interference. At certain distances, if I reflect the toxic back towards you, it should amplify the ones you are sending out. If I'm not the right distance away, then I could be making your toxic less powerful. We could use the lab to measure the wavelength, but I don't think that will be necessary. Just hold toxic for as long as you can, and I will do the rest."

I nodded, and let loose the attack. The wave radiated out at him, but a green shield appeared in front of him, and the attack started coming back this way. The wave became a lighter color, so I guessed that meant it was weakening it.

KY started slowly moving towards me. Just when I was almost out of energy, the wave became a very dark shade of purple. We both stopped. "Did it work?" I asked.

"Perfectly, and I now have the proper distance away I need to be. What else should we try?"

We worked the rest of the day, each of us coming up with creative ideas. Since we both mostly worked with special attacks, we went pretty well together. Finally, when we were satisfied, we went to Glacial tower for a quick rest and to see how everything was.

Ita was very conflicted. She had set up some tea and poffins for us when we arrived, and we were eating with her. "I still think that it was your fault for them coming to the tower, and I am furious about it, but I am extremely grateful for your help at holding them off. They left right after you disappeared."

"We're really sorry," I said. "Is the tower okay?"

"Oh, it's fine now. It didn't take too long to prepare, especially with Aurora's help. She still isn't living here, though."

"Is everyone in the tower okay?" KY asked.

"Yes, yes, everyone's fine. A few were injured, but no real harm was done. How's the Ice Prince?"

"He's healing right now," I said. "He'll be better in no time."

"Well that's good to hear. I don't understand what he's doing, getting into danger like this. He used to be very peaceful. I remember when he would enter contests with his trainer."

"He entered contests?" KY and I asked in unison. That was interesting. Ever since the contest hall became abandoned, the interest in contests dropped drastically.

She smiled. "You should have seen it. He was incredible. My trainer loved watching contests, and he was one of our favorites."

"What did he do?" KY asked.

"I don't think I can tell you. You just need to hope one day he shows you."

We thanked her for the tea, and went back to the base. Everyone was already there. Lilly called everyone back into the training room. "Okay, you've had a good while to practice, it's time to see what you've come up with. Whoever goes first will battle Elric and me privately, and then we will pick who they fight. Who wants to volunteer?"

We all looked at each other. "We would like to go first," Kykis said.

"Very well, then. The rest of you wait out here." Ore and Kykis followed her and Elric into the room, and the rest of us waited outside.

"How do you think they'll do?" Mark asked.

"I think it will be pretty good," Absolum said. "They both seem compatible enough in character, and their typing combination is something to be accounted for."

We waited for the battle to end, and Lilly came back out. "I have decided who they will fight. This will be a battle everyone watches. KY and Hydra, you will fight them."


	9. Chapter 9

We all followed Lilly and Elric into the training room, where Ore and Kykis were waiting. They didn't look like they had done much fighting against Lilly and Elric. What was the battle when we were all outside?

KY and I took our places on the opposite side of them. Lilly and Elric stood in the referee's area. "Begin."

Kykis and Ore were off. Kykis split into multiple copies of himself. Double team. We were about to attack them, but they all started quickly disappearing and reappearing randomly. It was a very crazy way to use teleport. We were momentarily stunned, which gave Ore the chance to hit both of us with an easy stone edge.

"Come on, guys!" Eriff yelled at us. "You can do better than that!"

I looked at KY, and he nodded. He closed his eyes, and I stepped under him, making a shield of trump cards around us. Ore ran forward, stones floating around him, but I extended my attack outward, knocking him and the Kykis copies back, destroying most of them.

KY opened his eyes. "Ready!" We rushed forward to the unsuspecting Ore, ready for our intensified toxic.

"Kykis!" He called.

Without warning, a shadow popped up in front of both of us and attacked. It passed right through us, but it startled us enough to let Ore move away. Kykis must know shadow sneak.

We turned to face them. "Let's go with the elemental star," I said.

"I'm for it." KY readied his try attack, while I sent my swift flying. Just as it started to reach Ore, KY hit it with his tri attack. Some of the stars became blue and red, and they were knocked in the direction of Kykis. He tried to teleport away, but he staggered when he reappeared, having been hit by a few. Sparks of electricity were around him. KY had paralyzed him.

"Go, Ore," Kykis said. Ore ran towards us, and in a flash was right in front of us, his fist glowing purple. Poison Jab. We moved the perfect distance away, and struck him with our toxic. He cringed, then fell to the floor, looking very tired.

I got ready to use trump card, but was jerked to the side. KY was moved as well. Kykis, looking very drained, was concentrating on us. Confusion. "I'll take care of Kykis," I said, running towards him.

Just before I reached him, Kykis started to glow white. "It's about time," Lilly said. "We've been waiting for this for forever."

KY grew taller, and the light disappeared, revealing a kirlia. He had evolved. I didn't let this phase me. I launched my swift attack at him, but he easily jumped backwards. As he landed, he let loose two glowing green leaves at me. Magical leaf.

I had no hope of dodging. The attack hit, and I was thrown back, landing upright next to KY. Ore was now next to Kykis. They both looked really tired.

"Time for our big finish," KY said. A purple and black orb of energy formed in his hands. He lifted it into the air. I jumped up behind it just as he released it as a ringed beam of energy. I shot a large amount of stars into it, finishing our move, which we called black star cannon.

Kykis fell to a knee sparks flying around, and Ore was just too drained from the poison to move. They were both hit, and the attack exploded. When the smoke cleared, they were both unconscious.

"Kykis and Ore are unable to battle," Elric said. "KY and Hydra are the winners."

Eriff walked over and gave them some herbs while the others came over to us. "Nice battle," Mark said. "You guys got some good combos."

"I'm guessing you switched, KY?" Lilly asked.

"Yes, I went to adaptability. My download ability made my attack stronger, which wasn't going to help us."

"Wait, what do you mean switch?" Absolum asked.

"Nothing," I said.

Eriff came back over with Kykis and Ore, who were looking much better. "You guys are great," Ore said. "What was that toxic combo you did?"

"We intensified it with my magic coat," KY explained.

I noticed that Kykis looked really irritated. "What's wrong."

He scowled. "I look like a freaking girl."

We all couldn't help it; we laughed. Kykis was always so calm and had his emotions in check. Seeing him angry at this was pretty funny.

He wasn't amused. "It's not funny!"

"What's not funny?"

We all turned to see Auroc limp into the room, leaning on the wall. There was a clean white bandage wrapped around his waist to cover the wound. Karu was at his side.

"Ah, good to see you're feeling better," Lilly said. "You just missed the first match of our training."

"Training. Sounds like fun."

Lilly looked at the Magcargo. "He should be clear now," Karu said, "just make sure he doesn't overexert himself in the next couple of days."

"We will," Elric said. "Thank you." Karu nodded, and left.

"So what are we doing?" Auroc said, shakily walking over.

"We are building the gang's compatibility," I said. "We all get a partner and need to learn how to work with them. You are with Mark."

He nodded. "So how did the first battle end?"

"KY and Hydra beat Ore and Kykis," Absolum said.

"And both of the groups passed," Lilly said. "They can each work very well with each other. This leaves you and Mark against Absolum and Eriff."

"Okay, then let's get going," Auroc said, walking to one side of the arena, ready to fight.

"Are you sure you can fight?" Mark asked. "You still look pretty tired."

"I'm well enough. Shall we begin?"

Lilly looked skeptical. "If you insist." Mark took his place next to Auroc while Eriff and Absolum went to the other side. "Begin."

"Back me up!" Mark said, charging forward. He burst into flames and started rolling towards them, flame wheel. This unfortunately was extremely easily countered. All Eriff had to do was brace himself, and when Mark hit him, the attack died down thanks to his flash fire ability.

Before Absolum or Eriff had the chance to attack mark, Auroc was there, moving with speed we didn't think he was capable of in his condition. He jumped, spinning over everyone, and Mark was lifted into the air while the Eriff was thrown to the side. Absolum was unaffected. It must have been psychic.

Mark and Auroc landed a bit away. "We can't beat them with fire. Do you know a move of a different type?"

"Only one that attacks," Mark said.

"It will work. When I say so, get into the air."

Absolum stepped in line with Eriff behind him. Purple flames popped up around them. Will-o-wisp. Absol's horn glowed white, which I believe meant he was preparing for razor wind.

"Wait for it," Auroc said. The opposing two let loose their attack, the white crescents of razor wind each having a flame in the middle of it. "Now!"

Mark jumped towards Auroc, jumping off of Auroc's hand into the air. Auroc ducked down, fog forming around his hands. Once the attack passed over him, he slammed his hands on the ground, and a layer of ice radiated out from him. The entire battle field froze, and Eriff and Absolum's feet were stuck.

Mark landed, having caught fire, so he melted through to solid ground. "Not bad. I got this." He charged forward, becoming surrounded in electricity. Wild charge.

Absolum's eyes glowed purple, and the ice cracked beneath them, the cracks glowing with purple energy. This made Mark lose his balance just slightly, which allowed Absolum to knock him aside with a strong night slash.

Mark landed hard. Auroc was soon next to him. "This is rather difficult."

"No kidding," Mark said, getting up. "Got any other cool tricks?"

"I'm afraid none of them would be very useful right now, unless," he got a determined look in his eyes. "Distract Eriff." He ran forward, his hands becoming incased in ice. Mark, not objecting at all, charged at Eriff, becoming surrounded in electricity as well. The battle had split into two.

In Auroc and Absolum's battle, Auroc was trying to hit him with his ice punch. Absolum was engaging him with night slash, landing some really strong blows every once in a while. I had seen how fast Auroc could move. Even while injured this seemed simply too slow.

Eriff and Mark's battle was raging on as well. Mark was only using wild charge while Eriff was flying through the air on fire, which I believe was flame charge. They would race around, running into each other. It seemed like Eriff was trying to get to Absolum to help, but Mark just wouldn't let it happen.

Auroc made another jab at Absolum, who jumped out of the way, then leaped at Auroc. They went down and a small cloud of dust formed. I didn't know what this move was. There were a few audible hits, and then Auroc flew up out of the smoke, only to be smacked across the room by Absolum, who hit him with a shadow claw.

Mark was soon there. "Hey, you okay?" Their opponents had already regrouped, and were preparing to attack again.

Mark put his paw on Auroc, and he glowed bright white, filling the room with light. Morning sun. When his light died down, they both looked a bit more energized.

Auroc got up. "We are almost done." He held his hands to his side, where an aura sphere started to form. It grew until it was the size of his torso. "My ability is justified, which is why I endured all those night slashes.

Eriff raced forward, this time being surrounded in blue flames. Flare Blitz. Mark charged forward again, using wild charge, and they went speeding off in their heated attack. Absolum's horn glowed white, and he shot a razor wind at Auroc. Auroc jumped into the air, and fired the massive aura sphere down. It exploded, leaving a huge crater with Absolum in the middle, unconscious.

Eriff and Mark both reached opposite ends of the field, and charged in head on at each other. They clashed in the middle, shaking the whole building. They pushed at each other for a good while, but then Eriff flew backwards, unconscious.

"Eriff and Absolum are unable to battle. Mark and Auroc win!" Eric said.

Auroc was breathing heavily and sat down. "Not bad. Not bad at all."

Mark walked over, really tired too. "Yeah, that was pretty good."

"It's amazing how quickly you two could work together," Lilly said.

"I may not be very social, but I had to be able to work with people when constructing the Glacial Tower," Auroc said.

"Well, that went by just as fast as I expected. You all were perfectly compatible. Now, our next piece of training will happen tomorrow. This one will be a group mission. Rest up, because we got a lot of work to do tomorrow."


	10. Chapter 10

"So what exactly are we doing?" I asked. We were in the contest hall, standing on the battlefield, all looking at how ruined it was. Wood had fallen, some seats were rusted. Lilly seemed to be the only one who knew what was going on.

"We are doing probably the simplest thing to increase group compatibility."

"Wait, all of it?" Auroc asked. He seemed to have figured something out while the rest of us were still clueless.

"Not all of it. Just the battlefield area. The bleachers will be for someone else to do."

"Would one of you like to explain?" I asked.

"We'll be fixing up the contest hall," Lilly said happily.

This of course was met by confused silence.

KY was the one to break it. "Uh, why are we cleaning, exactly?"

"The tournament is going to be held here. Now, we have been given probably the most important task, which is getting this area clean. If we don't fix it up, then we won't be able to have the tournament. It sucks, but it has to be done."

"Well what are we going to do?" Ore asked.

She winked at him. "Well it actually starts with you. Feel the ground."

He knelt down and put his hand on the ground. "It's rock hard all the way down to the bedrock."

"Exactly. We do need a bit of durability from the battlefield, but we don't need it to be so hard we break bones on it. Our main job is going to be softening the ground."

"I could do it, but it's simply too big of an area," Ore said. "The most I can do is turn the thing to rubble."

"Make it a fine rubble, and you'll be done for a while."

He didn't really see the point in this, but he nodded. He paused for a moment, then lifted his hands into the air. There was a huge shockwave through the ground, and the battlefield was reduced to rubble, just as he said. Then he slumped against the wall, exhausted.

"Perfect. Now, we are going to be making a circle of attacks designed to soften the dirt. We will do this by a process of breaking it into smaller pieces then pressurizing it until we have the right consistency. I will start by making it wet with my water. KY and Auroc, I want you two to freeze it, making the stone very brittle. Then I want Kykis, Hydra, and Absolum to break it up into smaller pieces. Once that has happened, I want Eriff, Mark, and Elric to trample it down."

We all nodded, and set to work. Lilly, using her hydro pump, started dowsing the field in water. It took her a minute, but then the entire area was wet. To freeze it, Kykis used his tri attack while Auroc simply made ice spread from his hands.

Now it was my turn. I used swift while Kykis used confusion and Absolum used his destruction abilities. Soon we had a finer layer of dirt.

Eriff and Mark both used fire attacks, flying across the field and heating it. Mark was using flame wheel while Eriff was using flame charge. Elric was the most interesting to watch. All we would see was a yellow blur and steam rise from his tracks. After about 45 minutes, we had reconstructed the ground.

"Nice work, everyone," Lilly said. "Now all we have to do is test to see if it's soft enough." She leapt up to the stands with a big jump, and faced us. I realized what she was doing, but before I could object, she leapt up into the air, and dove headfirst into the ground.

When the smoke cleared, she was lying in the middle of a small dented area. "Maybe just a little softer," she said.

And with this, we repeated the process. It only took us a few more tries, but it still took us about three hours. We weren't really in a rush to be done. Once we were done, we admired our handiwork. We did really good. Auroc found some paint for the lines, and after redrawing them, we were finished.

"So now what?" I asked.

Lilly shrugged. "I didn't really have anything planned for today. What do you guys want to do?"

"We still haven't found a black market dealer," Elric said.

"True, and we need one. Shall we go check out a few of the Freelands?" We all agreed, and set off. It had started raining. We probably didn't have a real chance of finding one since our group was huge, but we didn't really care.

As we were walking around the Freelands, I felt something odd. I couldn't really explain what it was, but I knew something wrong was happening. I couldn't really mention this to anyone, but I just had a bad feeling.

Soon it got unbearable. I took off down the street, back where we had come from. "Hydra, where are you going?" Lilly called to me. I ignored her. Something bad was happening, and if I didn't at least see what was going on, I would feel like it was my fault.

I turned the corner to see a pokemon running. It was a Zoroark. I could hear her sobbing. She tripped, flew forward, and hit the ground hard, skidding forward at least three feet. She didn't get back up. She just stayed there and cried, being drenched by the rain.

I ran over to her as fast as I could. "Hey, are you okay?" I asked. "Are you hurt? What's wrong?"

She just shook her head. After a few breaths, she stopped crying and spoke. "I'm fine."

"Are you sure? You fell really hard."

she picked herself up. "I'm fine." She most certainly was not fine. There was a long cut across her cheek and her arm looked like it had been rubbed by a cheese grater.

I looked behind me. The rest of the gang was there. "Why don't you come with us. You look really tired. What's your name?"

She took another deep breath. "Most people just call me X."

"Well then, X, we better get moving." I led her back to the group. "Hey, Lilly, this is X. She's looking pretty bad. Can we get her back to base and see if we can't help her."

"Sure. Those are some nasty looking cuts. Kykis." Kykis nodded, and in a flash, we were in the base. There was medical supplies down here since we felt like it was needed after the Absolum and Auroc incidents. Eriff started tending to her wounds.

"Hey X," Lilly said, "You wouldn't happen to be a black market dealer would you?"

She shook her head. "No, but I know where you can find one. There's an untied one in the Eastern Freelands. He's a banette, I believe."

Eriff finished wrapping her arm and then stuck a band-aid over the cut on her cheek. "There. All done." He arched his back. "Well, there's no point in going right this minute. Why don't we have some lunch?"

We all nodded, and KY, Kykis, and I went and brought down a bunch of food. We even found a box of ramen noodles, which we cooked using Lilly's water and Mark's fire. We were all having a lot of fun experimenting with what to put in the noodles.

X seemed very uncomfortable. She picked at her food, but didn't really eat. I had to ask. "Something wrong? Are you not hungry?"

"No, it's just..." She paused for a minute. "I don't get why you all are being so nice."

"Well why not?" Lilly asked.

"Yeah, wouldn't you have helped if it was one of us?" Eriff said

She just stared at her bowl, then put it down. "I think I'll be leaving now."

"Aw, do you have to?" Ore asked.

"Yeah, you should stay a bit longer," KY insisted.

"Why don't you join our gang?" Lilly said.

She shook her head. "I'm sorry. But I do need to go." With that, she left without another word.

"Well that was odd," Mark said.

"I hope she'll be okay," I said. I hadn't gotten the chance to ask her why she was running or why she was crying.

"Well, we can't worry about that right now," Lilly said. "I think we will go check out this Freeland. I, Auroc, and Hydra will go."

We nodded, and set off towards where our destination. The Freeland we were headed for was Wodash. It was a relatively dark part of town, full of shady pokemon. I did my best to avoid this area. It scared me.

Lilly asked around, and we found out where the pokemon was. His name was Kannin. He lived in an abandoned electronics store.

We went inside. "Hello?" Lilly said. "Is anyone here?"

I got a feeling a bit like when we met X, but it was much fainter. I didn't really pay attention to it this time. I looked around, wondering where the pokemon was hiding. I took one more step, and something flew through the air and sunk into the ground in front of me. I stood perfectly still. It was a shuriken made of water.

"Everyone stop moving," I said, trying to stay calm. They all froze. I looked upward. "Are you going to attack again?"

There was no reply. "Look, we aren't here to attack or anything. We are a part of the gang the Unnaturals. We're here looking for Kannin. We heard that he was a black market dealer."

There was another pause. "Please?" I said. "If he isn't here, we can leave?"

"He doesn't wish to speak with you," a voice said. "Please leave."

I nodded. "Okay, but can you at least tell us your name?"

Another pause. I could tell it was an awkward one. "What's wrong?"

"I don't have a name," he said.

I frowned. "Well that's not good. Why don't you give yourself one?"

More silence. "I don't know."

"It's sad, isn't it?" a voice from behind me said. I forced myself not to jump, and turned to see a banette, which was probably Kannin. "He came around here, not with a penny _or _a name. He had been sick and tired, so I let him crash here. He decided to stay and help me with my work."

I nodded. "What kind of pokemon are you?" I asked the shadows.

A tall, blue frog pokemon creeped from the shadows. He had a long pink tongue which he wore like a scarf. "I'm a greninja, final evolution of the water starter of Kalos."

"Now didn't I tell you not to be on guard duty today?" Kannin said. "You know you've been sick lately."

"I'm fine," he said. This was a lie. He looked pale and had sweat all over his face.

"No you aren't." He turned to me. "Well I heard you were looking for a black market dealer? I suppose I could fill that job for you. If you have a list of supplies for me, then I will gladly stop by and see what you have to trade. If I like doing business with you, I'll become your permanent black market dealer."

"Perfect," Lilly said. She named off a bunch of supplies we needed, and Kannin wrote it all down.

Once he was done, he looked at us all. "So why do you call yourselves the Unnaturals?"

"We all have some unnatural skill," Auroc said. "I can control ice, Hydra can control people, and Lilly has amazing jumping abilities. The others in the gang have strange things they can do as well."

"Well then Mr. Nameless over here would fit right in. Show them what you can do."

He looked down. "I don't like to."

"Ah, come on. Give it a whirl."

He sighed. Concentrating, he held his hands out in front of him. Water formed into the shape of a samurai sword.

"Woah," Lilly said, "that's pretty neat. I know you can make shuriken out of water, but I've never heard of someone making a sword."

"And he's made other weapons too," Kannin said. "Why don't you take him with you? He never get's to do anything here anyway."

"Do you want to come?" I asked.

He thought for a moment, then nodded. "Well that settles it. Let's head back now. Thanks, Kannin."

We walked back outside. It was still raining. "So we're going to need to give you a name. Have any ideas?"

"Maybe we should name him after a ninja," Auroc said.

"Or we could name him a normal name, should he want one," Lilly said. We all were discussing names, constantly asking whether or not he liked them. None of them really seemed to fit. He didn't seem to thrilled about name picking, and walked behind us.

"How about Kanuki?" Lilly asked.

"Too girly," I said. "What do you think?" We turned around to see that he was no longer walking right behind us. he had fallen a distance back. We hurried over to him. "Hey, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he said, shakily trying to get up. He had gotten paler. "I just don't feel very good."

Lilly put her paw on his forehead. "Your head is burning up. We have to get you out of this rain. Auroc, do you think you can carry him?"

He nodded, and picked up the pokemon, carrying him gently. We weren't too far away from the base. Everyone was waiting for us when we got there. Surprisingly enough, Fort and Hana where here as well. "Hey Eriff," Lilly said. "This guy's got a fever. Do we still have any medicine left?"

"I think a bit. Let's get him upstairs." They lowered the panel, and we all went up. I found it kind of funny how unfazed we were by harmed pokemon. We just explained the situation, and dealt with it.

Auroc laid him down on one of the beds in the infirmary, pulling the covers over him. He was shivering slightly. Eriff came back with a thermometer, an ice pack, and some herbs. "First I'm going to take your tempurature." The greninja put the thermometer in his mouth. He was at a hundred and four degrees.

"You're really sick," Eriff said. "How long have you been feeling bad."

"Not that long."

"No," I said. "That's a lie. I can tell."

He sighed. "I've felt this bad for the past two months."

"And you haven't said anything?" Absolum said.

He shook his head. Eriff sighed. "This isn't the thing you keep quiet about. Eat these." He gave him the herbs, which he ate slowly. "Now I want you to sleep and I'll have more medicine when you wake up." The greninja nodded, then was asleep.

"Nice to see you again," Lilly said to Hana and Fort. "Is Fort going to be able to join us?"

"Sort of," Hana said. "We talked it over, and I have decided I'm joining to."

We all stared. "But don't you have a Freeland to run?" Ore asked.

"I don't want to sit around, waiting to see who will take over the city from this contest. I will help who I want to win, which is this group."

"Well it's nice that you could join." She yawned. "I think I'll get a little bit of food and sleep for a while. Wake me up if something interesting happens." She left, soon followed by all the others. I looked at the pokemon. I wonder what he would want his name to be. I just mostly hoped he felt better soon. Something was nagging at me, but I didn't know what it was. I brushed it off and went to sleep, awaiting our next mission.


	11. Chapter 11

When I woke up, it was still dark out. I guessed it was around three in the morning. They were right when they said I wouldn't have a normal sleeping schedule. I stretched and walked out the door, going to get some food then check on the sick greninja.

I walked into the food storage to find Gani mixing medicine. I had forgotten she hadn't gone home yet. "Hey, Gani."

"Ah, Hydra, doesn't this seem a little early for you to be up? Honestly, you children have no regard for your sleep schedules. I'm guessing you want to check on the sick pokemon." I nodded. "Foolish boy. Having a cold for that long is extremely bad for you. He has a strong sense of discipline, I'll give him that."

"What kind of medicine are you making?" I asked.

"Oh, nothing too complex. I heard him shifting around, so I know he's up. It's meant to help lower his fever and to help him sleep easily. You might want to grab him some water. This definitely won't taste good."

"I have a better idea," I said, grabbing some watmel berries. "Sweetness is the best cure for a bad taste."

She chuckled. "Fair enough. Let's go." We carried the stuff into the infirmary. Sure enough, the nameless pokemon was still awake.

"We have some medicine for you," Gani said. He nodded, and sat up, taking the bowl of medicine from Gani."

I set a watmel berry next to him. "It's probably not going to taste good, so I brought you this."

It might have been my imagination, but it looked like he smiled slightly. "Thank you." He took the medicine, then ate the berry.

"Honestly, what were you thinking not getting help for this?" Gani said sternly. "I am all for people keeping their mouths shut, but this was not the time for that. You should have at least rested for a while instead of continuing to work."

"I wanted to help Kannin," He said.

"You can't help anyone when you aren't up to full strength. Next time you are feeling bad, you will take care of yourself and not strain your body like you have, do I make myself clear?" He nodded under her stern gaze. "Now, onto other matters, you have to have a name by morning, or I give you one."

He looked down, blushing slightly. "I have a name I would like."

"Well what is it?"

"Kedo," He said, blushing even more.

"Honestly, child, there is nothing wrong with that name. Stop blushing. If that is what you want to be called, then you can't be ashamed of it." She started walking away, mumbling about ridiculous children. "You go to sleep now. Hydra, let's go."

I followed Gani, smiling at Kedo. "She's a bit...spirited, but that just means she cares. Hope you sleep well, Kedo." I walked out of the room, following Gani.

To my surprise, the old pokemon smiled at me. "You really care for him, don't you?"

"I care for everyone here. My trainer never liked me, so I made sure always to be nice to people, since I didn't want them to feel what I felt. When I came here, I gained a bunch of friends and started making new ones. I just felt so loved, which I hadn't ever really felt before. It's like everyone here is my family."

She chuckled again. "Well, you certainly are the most tolerable of this bunch." We made it to her room. "I'm going back to bed now. You should too. Goodnight, dear." She entered her room, and was gone.

I smiled, feeling a wonderful warm feeling in my heart. Saying all that to Gani made me appreciate my friends even more. I walked back into the main room and noticed a light in a room I had never been in. There was the symbol of a book over the door.

I walked in to find a very decent sized library. Lilly was there, pouring over a bunch of books. "Hey, what are you doing?" I asked.

She jumped slightly. "Oh, hello Hydra. I was just checking on something. I noticed how vulnerable our gang is to the fighting type, which has an advantage on five of our members. Only Kykis has a true counter to this problem. I'm checking what types are super effective against it and what moves I can learn."

"I can help with that." She looked up. "I used to know the move charm. I don't use it anymore, but I could probably remember it after a few tries. Unless you want me to consecutively use it, I can use it in emergencies to lower their attack."

"That might be useful. But we need to have something more prepared, and fast." She turned the page. "I just got word. The tournament starts tomorrow."

My heart skipped a beat. "Tomorrow?"

"Yep. We are to be at the contest hall at midnight. All I know is that is where the preliminary round will be."

"So what should we do?"

"Get some sleep. You'll need it."


	12. Chapter 12

"Whoa, I didn't know that there were this many pokemon in the city!" Eriff said, looking at the huge crowd of pokemon in the stands. We were in the contest hall, waiting for the tournament to start. "What are they all doing here?"

"Since the winner rules the city, it's obvious that everyone is allowed to attend, to see who wins," Lilly said.

I looked nervously at everyone. Ore had his hood up, not wanting to be seen. Auroc and Absolum were wearily looking at the other gangs. Lilly, Eriff, Elric, Mark, and Kykis where looking at the crowd, Kykis blushing pretty bad, since he was still a kirlia. KY had brought some wires and metal and was fiddling with them. Fort and Hana were talking quietly. Kedo was feeling good enough to come, but Gani had given him strict orders not to do anything unless absolutely necessary.

Gani, to everyone's surprise, was going to be competing with us. She had given her reasons for helping us very hotheadedly. "I'm not about to let some stupid gang rule my life! And you all can't walk out the front door without being hurt. Though don't get the wrong idea! The second this is over I'm going back home." We decided it would be best not to object.

"Hey, Lilly," I said, "I've been meaning to ask, but who organized this anyway?"

"The heads of the gangs and the leaders of the Freelands," Lilly said. "We found it would be a great way to end disputes between gangs."

"Hello everyone!" A cheery voice above us said. We all looked up to see a smoochum and infernape standing in a small hot air balloon flying above the battlefield. The one who had spoken was the infernape, and she sounded female. "We are about to get started! I'm Samantha and this is Akiah, and we will be your hosts for this wonderful event. Are we all ready?" The crowd cheered.

"Then we won't keep you waiting too long!" The smoochum, Akiah, said. "We have to explain the rules of this round! We have more or less forty gangs here tonight, seven of them major gangs. Now, in this round, in honor of this wonderful building, we will be doing this contest style!"

Lilly's eyes widened slightly. "Uh-oh."

"It's very simple," Samantha said. "Each gang will send one of their members forward to represent them, and they need to dazzle us with their skills. Let's meet the judges!" She indicated to a small table, where an alakazam, a mawile, and a beautifly sat. "We have the genius who keeps all of our electricity running, let's give it up for Mr. Denik!" There was a loud cheer, and the alakazam nodded to the crowd. "Then we have the cutest steel type around, the one who runs the largest Freeland, Stele, let's hear it for Kasuai!" The mawile jumped up, waving at the crowd, smiling. "And last, but certainly not least, let's hear it for Cho, a five time contest champion!" The beautifly got a really big cheer.

I still couldn't get over Kasuai. "Does she really run Stele?" Stele was a Freeland to the far northwest, and was the biggest Freeland. They had devoted to melting down broken metal and making it into new things, hoping to one day rebuild the city.

"Yep," Lilly said. "Don't let her cute appearance fool you. She is a born leader."

"Now," the two announcers said in unison, "Let the preliminary round begin! First up, the Shadow Eaters!"

A honchcrow flew into the center of the battlefield. It wasted no time, flapping it's wings, creating a huge wall of black smoke. Haze. It then started flying in a sharp circle around it, causing it to bend in, looking like an hourglass.

"Not bad," Samantha said, "but he'll need to do better. Wait! What's this?" Golden feathers started to mix into the smoke. Feather dance. It flew faster, diving into the middle of the smoke. It then broke apart, shattering the feathers, making sparkles fly everywhere. The pokemon was hovering in the middle, it's wings glowing white. Steel wing.

"Not bad," Mr. Denik said. "It was simple, yet quite elegant. I quite liked it."

"That was so pretty!" Kasuai screamed excitedly. "I loved it!"

"It was really nice, but a bit plain," Cho said. I could immediately tell she wasn't going to be easy to please.

"All right then!"Akiah said. "Let's hear it for our next group, the Geoaxes!" There were more cheers, and a quagsire came out to the battlefield. He smiled at everyone, then dug underground. He popped up a distance away, and dove back down. He continued to do this, littering the ground with holes.

"I wonder what he's up to," Samantha said.

He popped up and landed on the ground, then shot water into the hole. The water was teaming, so I guessed it was scald. Soon you could see water from all the holes. He had filled them up. He smiled at the crowd again, jumps up, and lands hard on the ground, causing the ground to shake. Earthquake.

The water from the hole shot up into the air. I had seen something like this before. A drummer had put paint on his drums, so when he hit it, the paint would fly into the air. This was the same concept. The crowd went wild. The ground stopped shaking, and he filled the holes with mud, using mud bomb. The mud dried quickly, fixing the field.

"Very creative," Mr. Denik said. "That was quite neat."

"Are you kidding?" Kasuai yelled. "That was awesome!" I was getting the feeling she wasn't hard to please, the exact opposite of Cho.

"It was nice, but lacked a certain touch," Cho said.

This continued on, gangs going one after the other. Then it was our turn. "Up next, a newer gang, the Unnaturals!"

Lilly looked at us. "Does anyone have anything they want to try?"

I looked at KY, and he looked at me. Auroc saw us, then sighed. "I'm going to kill Ita. I got it." He walked out onto the battlefield. I couldn't help but feel really excited to see what he could do.

He looked at the crowd. Ice started to form around his hands. He raised them up, then slammed them on the ground. Ice spread until it covered the entire battlefield.

"Whoa, look at that!" Akiah said. "You don't see that every day."

Auroc then raised his left foot up, putting his hands on either side of it. Ice formed into what looked like an ice skate.

No way.

He made another skate on his other foot, and stood for a moment, his eyes closed. Music from an unknown source started to play, and he opened his eyes, which were now pink. He was psychically creating music. The song was the Carol of the Bells. He started his routine, which appeared to be very well rehearsed.

"No way," Mark said. "When did he learn to do that?"

"From the looks of it, he's known how to do it for a while," Lilly said. The crowd was perfectly silent. Fine ice streamed from behind Auroc as he skated, creating a very elegant appearance. He was downright amazing.

He finished his routine, and the crowd went crazy, almost everyone on their feet.

"Very nice!" Mr. Denik said. "I've never seen anything like that."

"That was amazing!" Kasuai yelled, jumping up and down in her chair. "Who knows encore? Make him do it again!"

"That was very well done," Cho said. "He is clearly well rehearsed in the art of contests." Auroc gave a bow to the judges, then walked back over to us.

"That was awesome!" Eriff said. "Where did you learn how to do that?"

"I used to enter contests. That was my most popular routine."

"Well we are sure to make it past the preliminaries," Lilly said.

We waited for all the other gangs to go. Once we were done, Samantha spoke. "Alright everyone! It's the moment you've all been waiting for! Only the top twenty gangs will get to move on! Turn your attention to the big screen!" She indicated to the large monitor, where the symbol of each gang was displayed. Our symbol was a flame in the shape of a four leaf clover, which Lilly said she had thought up rather quickly. Some of the symbols started disappearing, and soon we were left with twenty symbols. We had made it.

"All right!" Akiah yelled. "Let's give it up for all of them!" There was a huge cheer from the crowd. "We have food in the back for the winning gangs. Go meet your competitors, and get ready for the next event, which will be tomorrow. What is it you ask?" She smiled at Samantha. They said what it was in unison.

"Capture the flag!"


	13. Chapter 13

"All right!" Eriff said, looking at the huge room of tables, each having an immense amount of food on them. "This is going to be great!" All the other gangs who were still in the tournament were here too, eating and talking to members of other gangs.

"Everyone meet back at base at midnight," Lilly said. She headed off, and I noticed a few people watch her as she went by. I shrugged. She'd be fine.

I headed over to a large table of berries, and grabbed a few of the sweeter ones. I accidentally knocked one off the table, but someone caught it. "Careful, there."

"Sorry," I said, turning to see who it was. I froze. It was War. "War!"

He chuckled. "Yes, that would be me. You're in that new gang, right? What are you called?" He thought hard for a moment. "The Abnormals?"

"The Unnaturals," I said wearily.

"That's right. Sorry." He grabbed a few belue berries, taking a bite out of one. I wasn't surprised when he puckered, shaking his head. "Man, these are sour!" He laughed. "Do you want one?"

I was confused, and I accepted one. "Don't you remember me?"

He took another bite of his berry, managing to keep somewhat of a straight face. "How could I? This is the first time I've ever seen you. Speaking of which, what is your name?"

I was so distracted I took a bite out of the belue berry in front of me. I puckered as well. "Hydra," I managed to say.

"Nice to meet you. Now why would you have thought we had met before?"

I chose my next words carefully. "I thought we met in the Freeland Jis, in Glacial Tower."

"Couldn't have, I've never been there." He finished his berry and grabbed another one. "Though I have wanted to go. We've been kind of busy."

"What do you mean?" I acidentally took another bite of the sour berry.

"We've been being attacked. We don't know who's doing it, but we manage to keep them away. If it happens to you, make sure you come get us. If it's the same people, we won't hesitate to help." He grabbed a few more berries. "See you around."

He walked away, leaving me very confused. Elric came over. "Were you just talking to War?"

"Yeah, but it was strange. He wasn't anything like the War from Glacial Tower." I saw the quagsire that had done the routine. "I'll be right back."

I ran over to him. "Hey!" He turned to look at me. I smiled at him. "The routine you did was amazing! You're a part of the Geoaxes, right?"

He nodded. "I've been all over the city, but I hadn't seen any of the Geoaxes. Were you guys preparing for the tournament?"

He shook his head. "We've been being attacked lately, and it's taken up most of our time. You were just talking to War. Didn't you ask him?"

"Uh, no. Got to go," I ran off, leaving the pokemon very confused. I looked back at him, and he shrugged and got some more food.

Elric met up with me. "What was that all about?"

My mind was racing. "I don't think the Geoaxes have ever attacked us."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know, but when I talked to War, he acted like he had never met me. He also said he had never been to Glacial Tower."

"Could he have been trying to trick you?"

"I don't know. He just seemed to friendly for it to be fake."

Elric nodded. "Make sure we tell Lilly when we get back to base. I'll do a bit of digging as well." He walked into the crowd of pokemon.

"Hey, Hydra!" I turned to see a blaziken walking over.

"Hey, Kan," I said, smiling. He had done the routine for the Volcs, which had been him using fire punch and blaze kick while doing some very neat gymnastics.

"I saw you talking to War. Everything all right?"

"Yeah," I wondered if he could confirm War's story. "Hey, do you know anything about the Geoaxes?"

"Yeah, a little bit. They aren't very well liked, since they can usually be seen destroying buildings. Whether they do it on purpose or not is to be determined. War's a real cool guy." He smiled. "He's the only guy I've ever seen eat more than one Belue berry. He also seemed to have some relationship with Kasuai."

"I've never seen any of their members. Why is that?"

"Well the only time you'd ever see them is if you were in their territory or saw them in a Freeland, but even so, I've heard a battle of sorts coming from their territory every night I've been on guard duty. Maybe they've been being attacked."

"Maybe." My heart was racing. "Hey, I got to go, okay?"

"Sure. You okay?"

"I'm fine. See you later." I walked away, feeling sick to my stomach. If War hadn't attacked us at Glacial Tower, I bet he hadn't attacked Lilly and them when they found Absolum. I had no clue what it all meant, but I was sure of one thing. The Geoaxes never attacked us. Someone was framing them, and they were targeting us.


	14. Chapter 14

"Are you sure about this?" Lilly said, pacing. We were all currently in the restaurant, the party with the other gangs having finished, and I had told her and the rest of the gang my suspicions.

"Dead positive. The Geoaxes never attacked us, and I think I know a way we can prove it. Capture the flag is tomorrow, right?" She nodded. "Okay, so what we should do is first have someone spy on them as they compete. Should the Geoaxes use weapons, then we know they attacked us. Should they not, then someone should go talk to Kasuai. Kan said that she has some relation to him. We could also send someone to the Geoaxes territory to see if they are attacked."

"Not bad," Lilly said. "Elric, you spy on the Geoaxes during the games. Hydra, Hana, and Ore, I want you guys to go see Kasuai afterward. Hydra seems to have the best social skills of us all, and Hana was a Freeland ruler. Plus Ore has his mineral abilities, which should go over nicely with her. While you guys do that, the rest of us can watch the Geoaxes. Should they be attacked, we should be prepared to help them. Sound good to everyone?" We nodded. "Good, then onto other business." She grabbed a map of the city and laid it out in front of us. "Capture the flag."

"That sounds fun." We all jumped when we saw Kannin walk through the front door, a bag slung over his shoulder. "Is this a part of the tournament?"

"It is." Lilly said. "Are you here with items for us?"

"I am." He set the bag down. "I have to ask, how do you plan to pay for the work I do? I'm not a very harsh dealer. I mostly do it because I enjoy my line of work, but one must make a living. I will require at least one trade a month. What do have?"

Lilly walked over behind the counter, and came back with a huge pearl. "Will this do?"

Kannin took it and examined it closely. "Stunning. I know a few people who would love to have this, some for more practical reasons than others. It will do perfectly. Lead the way to your storage."

We took the platform upstairs, and went to the food room. He opened his bag, and pulled out large crates of items. "Here we go. I also looked through past records of the restaurants purchases, and got everything they should have had in stock, should you want a good amount of variety."

I stared. "How did that all come out of that small bag?"

"The move trick is quite amazing, isn't it?" He said, grinning at me.

We thanked him, and went back downstairs. Before he left, he set his bag down again. "Now, before I go, I do have a few gifts, as a sort of thank you for doing business with me. First up is you, Lilly." He pulled out a necklace with a teardrop shaped charm. "I found this mystic water only recently. It will work miracles with your strength. Though it is slightly worn, so I suggest only having it when in very important battles." He put the charm around her neck. "Oh, and I have a bracelet that is meant to be worn around your tail. It's said to bring strength to others." He pulled out a black bracelet with a gemstone in it and put it onto her tail.

Next he turned to Eriff. "I heard that you wish to become a breeder one day." He pulled out a tattered book. "It may look a bit worse for wear, but still very nice. It is the breeder's guide, buy someone named Suzy. I believe she was a famous breeder from Kanto." Eriff was grinning like crazy, and started reading immediately.

Then he looked at Elric. "You were a bit harder to find something for. Though I found this." He pulled out a small satchel which he opened to show the sparkly powder inside. "Should you add this bright powder with your amazing speed, I doubt anyone will be able to hit you."

Next was Kykis, and he smiled at him. "I'm afraid I don't have anything particularly for you, but I do believe you will find something you will greatly appreciate in the near future."

Then he turned to KY, and pulled out a weird looking battery. "I heard you like electronics. This is a universal battery, and can power any electronic you wish."

Then he turned to Mark. "You I didn't get anything for either, but like I said, you'll find something neat really soon."

Next was me. "You get an extra nice gift since you helped out Kedo." I was a little surprised he already learned his name, but I ignored it. He pulled out a pretty pink, white, and blue bow. "This is a rare version of the pink bow. I have a feeling you'll like what it represents, should you ever find out." He tied it around my hear, and I thanked him.

Then he turned to Ore. "Heard you like rocks. But that's not the only thing I heard." He smiled big, pulling out a notebook, along with a large slab of rock and a few jars.

Ore's eyes got wide. "Is that granite?"

"Yep. Capable of being used for making pencils or mineral paint."

Then he turned to Fort and Hana. "You two weren't easy, but I found something nice for each of you." He handed Fort a helicopter camera and Hana a necklace of flowers and seeds. "Heard Fort likes security systems, so I thought I'd get you this little flying camera. Just set it up and it'll spy on anything for you. As for you, Hana, I know someone who was able to grow miracle flowers, which is what that necklace is made of."

"Miracle flowers?" I asked.

"grown from miracle seeds," Hana said. "Thank you."

He nodded, and turned to Gani. "You were probably the easiest." He showed her a basket of different fruits and nuts. "I will be dropping these off at your home, and make sure that your home stays in upmost shape while you are gone."

Then he turned to the final two, Auroc and Absolum, and smiled. "I have extra special gifts for the two of you." He showed them both two really pretty marbles, I believe. One was light blue, with a dark blue and cream inside, while the other was orange, with a blue and red inside. "My grandmother loved to collect these little things. She would always tell me stories of the love and trust they symbolized. Keep them with you at all times." They both nodded, and accepted the gems.

He pulled his bag over his shoulder. "Well, I am off. A quick suggestion for your game of capture the flag. There was an emporium that got abandoned not too far from here. You might want to make that your base. Till we meet again." He walked out of the restaurant.

"He's a good dealer," Mark said.

"Agreed." Lilly turned our direction back to the map. "I think I know where the emporium he's talking about is. It shouldn't be too hard to guard. Now, the objective is to get another team's flag. The more flags you have, the more points you get. Three teams with the lowest score will be eliminated. The main problem will be the seven major gangs."

"So there's the Shadow Eaters, the Geoaxes, and the Volcs. Who are the other four major gangs?" I asked.

"The Harmonics, the Kimonos, the Draviathans, and the Skyscrapes," Elric explained. "These gangs are the seven most noticeable gangs so far. The Shadow Eaters are known for their dark types and cruelty, the Geoaxes are known for their ground, rock, and steel types and their recklessness, the Volcs are known for their strategy and fire types, the Harmonics are known for their singing abilities, the Kimonos are an all female gang known for their cunning, the Draviathans are known for their strength and dragon types, and the Skyscrapes are known for their speed and flying types."

"And we are going to take one of their flags," Lilly said.

We all stared at her. "What?" KY asked. "Are you sure?"

"Absolutely. If we plan on winning, I don't want to be that new gang that slipped into first place. We are going to become a major gang. The only real question here is who should we try to get a flag from. I wouldn't recommend the Kimonos. They are extremely crafty, not to mention somewhat cruel. You do not want to be caught by any of them."

"The Harmonics would be a bad idea as well," Auroc said. "I've seen them destroy a building from them all using round at the same time. None of us are soundproof, so it would be best to avoid them. Plus, I don't think they plan on going on the offensive. They will probably just all guard their flag so they don't lose any points."

"That leaves the Shadow Eaters, Geoaxes, Volcs, Draviathans, and Skyscrapes," Eriff said. "Though I would suggest ruling out the Skyscrapes. They have some very dangerous long range attackers, and are very good at sneak attacks from above."

"It would also be unwise to go against the Draviathans," Ore said. "Besides Auroc, we don't have any type of advantage over them."

"We should go after the Shadow Eaters," I said.

This was met by silence.

Elric was the first to speak. "Why?"

"Because they don't like us. I can almost guarantee that they will want revenge on us. Dahk told Lilly so. I'm betting they will immediately come for us. Depending on how angry they are at us, they might get reckless and leave very little defense behind. The only problem is Kan will probably assume the same thing, and come after their flag as well."

Lilly nodded. "That's a pretty good assumption. Okay, here's our plan. Kykis, I want you to start stationed at the top of this skyscraper." She pointed to a large building at the end of the street. "The second you spot an enemy coming, then we need you to let us know. It would also be good if you could pinpoint the location of the other bases. Fort, since you and KY have the most experience with security, you two, Gani, and Hana will be guarding the base. Kykis will assist you after he is done on the skyscraper. He will tune in telepathically to you, so he'll know if you need help. Elric, Eriff, Mark, and I will all be spying on the Geoaxes. We won't necessarily take their flag, but should they use weapons, I want to be there to intervene, since I have an advantage over most of them. We will go after other flags when we are sure they aren't doing anything suspicious. Auroc, Ore, and Absolum, I want the three of you to be instigators. Cause mass chaos throughout the games. Try to see if you can provoke the Shadow Eaters to attack us. They might trip up."

Then she spoke to me and Kedo. "You two have the most important job. You two will be infiltrating the Dahk's base and getting their flag. We don't want to look cheap, so try hard not to use Psyche Scream. Kedo, cover Hydra from the shadows. KY will set up his information center, and relay details of their bases layout to you, unless we get attacked. Should anything go wrong, get out of their as fast as you can." I nodded, shaking slightly. That was a lot of pressure.

She rolled up the map. "Now that we are clear, we all better get some sleep. Tomorrow is a big day."

We all went upstairs and into our rooms. I shifted around on my bed, nervous about tomorrow. The Shadow Eaters scared me. Every time I thought about them, I imagined myself or someone I loved getting hurt. But we were all so close. We were like family. Should one of us get hurt, the others would be there for them. This thought comforted me as I fell asleep, giving me the same warm feeling I had when I had talk to war about how much I liked them all.


	15. Chapter 15

"Alright everyone!" Samantha called from a hot air balloon way above the city. The judges, even though they weren't judging, also had balloons. She had a microphone which hooked up to the contest hall and to the speakers around the city (I never knew why they were there. I think it had once been an alarm system.), and was announcing the start of capture the flag. "It's about time for us to get started!" The cheers could be heard from the contest hall.

"Now, let's go over the rules!" Akiah said. "It is almost midnight, which will be when the games will start. The games will go on till seven in the morning, so I hope you all are rested up! At the end of the games, whichever three have the least amount of flags will be eliminated. Should there be a tie, then there will be a battle to determine the winner. Are we ready?" There was a collective noise of agreement from the gangs. "Then let the game begin!"

"Let's go!" Lilly, said. We all took off down the street, away from our base. Lilly's group went right, Auroc's group went left, and I headed straight. Kedo had disappeared rather quickly. I looked back, wondering how KY and them would do back at the base. I hadn't actually gone inside, but the place was huge, having two stories. We didn't know what kind of emporium it was yet, but we didn't care too much.

I spoke into the headset I had on. "Aright KY, what do you have for me?"

"Nothing yet, but there is a group of enemies heading your way. Take a right into the alleyway." I did so, appearing on the street on the other end. I looked at the skyscraper behind me, and could just make out the shape of Kykis on the top of it.

"Watch your step," KY said. "You're getting dangerously close to the Normatic's territory." I nodded, and headed down a different street. The Normatics where a small gang made mostly of normal type pokemon. They weren't too much of a threat, but I didn't want to run into them.

"Your on the right track," KY said. "Kykis said he saw a group of Shadow Eaters coming from the direction you're heading. Do you see any interesting buildings?"

I looked at the buildings and groaned inwardly. "Yep. The security center." This wasn't good. The building was probably the most secure in stability and security in the entire city. It was definitely not going to be easy to infiltrate.

"Kykis can sense a lot of pokemon in there. But don't worry, they won't be in there for much longer." I was about to ask him what he meant when there was a huge geyser of ice and stone that erupted not far from the building. Then the thing cracked as a web of dark purple energy ran up it, swamping the area in shards of ice and stone.

Instigators. Well, they were definitely doing their jobs.

I ran in the direction of the security center, when there was a spark of electricity that hit me. I went flying, and turned to see a pikachu staring me down, sparks flying from my cheeks. I narrowed my eyes, about to attack, but then something odd happened. There was sound like a muffled gunshot, and the pokemon fell to the ground, unconscious. I looked around, then moved in to check on him. On his back was a small wet circle. I looked at a tall building near us to see something move into the shadows of the building. It must have been Kedo. I wasn't quite sure what he did, but I wasn't going to complain.

I continued on my way to the security center. My headset had been fried by the pikachu's thunderbolt, so I no longer got information from KY. I would have to do this all myself. It was up to me and Kedo alone to get the flag.

I hid in an alley not far from the security building. There was only one way in: the front door. It was currently being guarded by a cacturne. The building was at least ten stories high. I had no clue where they had hid the flag.

Kedo jumped down next to me. "What's the plan?"

"First we have to get past that guard. Do you have any idea where they would hide the flag?"

"The camera room," he said. "It would be an optimal place to hide it, since if they see anyone coming, they can move it quickly. Our best bet would be to momentarily take out the electricity and take out all the camera's."

"How do we do that?" I asked.

Then, to my amazement, there was a huge lightning strike that hit the top of the building. It was so intense that it shook the ground. A large group of electric type pokemon swarmed the guard and took him out easily. They went inside. These must have been the Polar Magnets, an electric and steel type gang. They probably left their steel members to guard their base.

"Great," I said. "We get in, but have more people to deal with." We quickly ran past the unconscious guard, entering the building. There wasn't anyone in the lobby.

Kedo quickly ran to the front desk, and tried to turn on the computer. "The power is down. It looks like they had the same idea as us."

I nodded, then saw someone coming towards the front door. "Kedo, get down!"

We both dove underneath the desk, making ourselves as small as possible. I heard soft footsteps, and was sounded a bit like something dragging across the floor. I knew those footsteps, and that other sound. I had heard it when we were hurrying to save Auroc.

It was Kan and Karu.

"This isn't good," I whispered. "how can we get upstairs now?"

He peeked out from our hiding spot, and got up. "Over here." He led me to a small square hole in the wall. "It's a service elevator. I can send you up in it, and it should take you all the way to the top. I'll meet you up there."

"How will you get past them all?"

"I'll be fine." He picked me up and put me in the elevator. "Good luck." He shut the door, and I started moving upward.

I breathed deeply. I was not cut out for this kind of pressure. I waited patiently for the door to open. When it did, my heart nearly stopped.

There was a tyranitar right in front of me.

I didn't dare move. It was lying on the ground, it's eyes closed. It was asleep. I got out of the elevator dead silent, and took off down the hall. That was way too close. I _really_ wasn't cut out for this kind of pressure.

I looked at all the doors, and found one that was cracked open. Blue light was coming from it. I peeked inside to see a bunch of computer screens, along with a very bored looking sneasel, since all he saw now was blue static. It was quite obvious the Shadow Eaters had very little regard for their defense. Though it slightly bothered me that I didn't notice the power come back on.

I took a deep breath, then let loose my toxic. I then quickly hid inside a nearby trashcan. Luckily it was empty. The pokemon came flying out, looked around, and went quickly down the hallway, staggering slightly.

I ran back inside the room. The flag was under the leg of the chair he had been sitting on. I tied two of the corners together and put it around my neck.

"A bold fashion statement."

I froze, and turned to face the doorway. Kan was there, smiling at me. "I must admit, I'm impressed. I figured you would come here, but I had no idea that you had gotten here yet. You all work very fast."

I stood in stunned silence. He chuckled. "What, cat got your tongue?" He sighed. "I really am impressed. Unfortunately, I can't let you leave with that flag. You could always try to escape, but we have the stairway guarded, along with that little elevator of yours." A blue orb of energy formed in his hand. Focus blast. It molded itself into the shape of a knife. "Sorry about this."

He threw his attack at me, but something flew by it. A mat sprang up from the ground, and the blade of energy got stuck in it. Kedo was there in front of me. "Let's go!" He swiped his hand in front of him, and a puff of white smoke filled the room. Smokescreen. We ran out the door, running over Kan as we left.

We ran down the hallway. "How are we going to escape? They have the stairway blocked!"

We turned hallways to see three fire pokemon. Kedo nodded. "Follow my lead!" He threw a bunch of water shurikens, and the pokemon dove out of the way. The attack broke through the window that was there.

Oh boy.

We ran forward at full speed and leapt out the window. We were nearing the ground fast. "What now?"

A water object appeared in his hand, and he grabbed me. "Hang on!" The item, which turned out to be a grapping hook, was fired into a nearby window. We were redirected to the building, and we broke through a window a few floors below, rolling around in a very ungraceful manor.

I quickly got up. "Hurry. Let's get back to base!" We quickly made our way to the ground and took off back in the direction of the emporium. When we got there, we slowed to a stop, staring in awe at what we saw.

There was a force field around the entire store. It was a protect, but the largest one I had ever seen. Fort was said to really like security. Was this all his doing?

I thought about Kykis. _We have a flag. We need into the base._

In two flashes of light, we were in a dark room with the four defenders. "Did you get the flag?" Hana asked.

I nodded, taking it off my neck. "Yep. It was close though. Kan showed up and we barely made it out without a serious fight."

"Well that's good," Kykis said. I turned to him, and was slightly startled. He was much taller, no longer girly looking at all. He had evolved into Gallade.

"When did you evolve?" I asked.

"When we checked the place out," he said. "As it turns out, this used to be a stone emporium. I bet Kannin knew I wanted to evolve, so he recommended this place, giving me access to the dawn stone. I bet he also intended Mark to find a fire stone as well."

"You know you could evolve too," Kykis said, not taking his eyes off of his immense control panel. "Do you know what you want to evolve into?"

Honestly, I had never really thought about it. "I don't think I want to evolve just yet. I'll hold off on it."

"Suit yourself." He pressed a few buttons. "Hey, Lilly, Hydra and Kedo just got back. We have a flag."

"Good," Lilly's voice said from the control panel. "We are still watching the Geoaxes. They have a pretty good set up. There defense is nice and solid. Has anyone tried to get into our base yet? We aren't exactly conspicuous about it."

"Not yet," KY said. "Kykis, could you make another sweep of the city?" Kykis nodded, and was gone in a flash. Only moments passed before he reappeared, staggering. He fell to the ground, out cold.

"Kykis!" I ran over. "What happened?"

KY was going crazy at the control panel. "Not good! Not good! The Skyscrapes are circling the building, and the Kimono's are right outside as well!"

I swallowed in fear. We had two major gangs right outside our door. "But won't the protect hold?"

"Not for much longer," Fort said. "It lasts for only fifteen minutes, and I won't be able to put up another one for the same amount of time. Get ready, cause this is going to get ugly."


	16. Chapter 16

"Does anyone have a plan?" I asked. Gani was quickly healing Kykis. He regained consciousness, but wasn't in any state to fight yet.

"I might have been able to hold off the Kimonos," Hana said, "but there's no way I can take on the Skyscrapes."

"Kykis, do you have any counter to them?"

He was still moving very fast at the control panel. "No. The only one who has a chance of taking them down is Elric."

I thought for a moment. "There has to be a way." Then I had an idea. "I can beat them! Hana, hold off the Kimonos. Kedo, I need you to grab the attention of the Skyscrapes." I grabbed our flag and tied it, putting it around my neck. Then I grabbed a new headset. "KY, I need you to find out the base of the Polar Magnets."

"Are you sure about this?" KY asked.

"Nope, but it's the best we got." I ran to a broken window. "How much longer on the protect?"

"Thirty seconds," Fort said.

Hana moved in place at the front door. "Fort, are you ready?"

He nodded. "Whenever you are."

Thirty seconds had past, and the attack went down. "Go!"

Kedo and I burst through the window, and Hana threw the front door open. Kedo formed to guns of water in his hands and started shooting at the ring of flying types above us. Their perfect formation was thrown off, and I heard one of them calling out orders. They noticed I had our flag.

We took off down the street as fast as we could, but it wasn't going to be fast enough. I scowled. Of course we couldn't outrun them. They were flying. Plus, the Skyscrapes were known for their speed.

Then I felt myself picked up by Kedo, and we started moving very fast. I was set down in a small cart of water. I looked at him in amazement. He had made a motorcycle.

We sped down the street, the Skyscrapes in hot pursuit. "KY, what do you have for me?"

"Nothing very helpful. Luckily Hana distracted the Kimonos, but she isn't fairing well. With Kykis down, I can't tell you the exact location of their base. The place to look would be the electronic store on 21st street, the one with the lightning rod."

"Kedo, get us to 21st!" I yelled. He nodded, making a sharp right.

I could see the lightning rod. "Once we reach that street, drive right into the electronic store. Plow down the door. and try to exit through the back alleyway."

"That's a tall order," he said.

"It's our best chance."

We turned again, the electronic store not far away. I saw a pachirisu run into the base. Good, they noticed us. Kedo got on the outer edge of the street, and made a sharp turn, sending us right through the front door of the Polar Magnet's base.

I looked behind us. The Skyscrapes didn't follow us inside, so they were probably circling the building, just like they had been doing to us.

We made it to the back door, which led to the alley, but we didn't make it through it. Kedo's bike went over a thick cord, and we swerved, hitting the door sideways. The bike burst apart, dumping us onto the ground. We quickly hid behind some shelves. They had holes in them, which were meant for the cords of whatever electronic device would be on display, so we were able to see what was going on.

Many electric pokemon gathered, and a heat rotom was working quickly at a computer.

"Hurry, Nevo!" an ampharos said. "They are about to attack!"

"I'm working on it!" The heat rotom said. "Everyone got a wire?"

All the electric pokemon held up a wire. "Good. Ready, and, go!"

All of them let loose electric attacks, which traveled through the wires. There was a bright light from outside, and the Skyscrapes started falling like stones. They must have reversed the effects of the lightning rod, allowing it to send out electricity. I was pretty curious on how they did it.

"We should be safe," Nevo, the rotom, said. "Pac said they were chasing two pokemon on a motorcycle. Where'd they go?"

"The back door was open," a minun said. "We believe they escaped through there."

"Do we still have our flag?" The ampharos said.

"Yep. It's still in the generator room."

"Good. That was a lot of the skyscrapes. Their flag might be unguarded. Let's hurry and get it. Nevo, you stay here with Radic. Everyone else, follow me." They all nodded, and hurried out the door.

We stayed still. Nevo was still at the computer, while Radic, the minun, had gone to stand watch at the door. Kedo moved very slowly, forming a gun in his hand, putting it against a hole. I got ready to run, since radic would come running when Nevo went down.

Kedo fired, and Nevo was blasted right out of his chair, out cold. Just as I expected, Radic ran over, only to be pounced on by me and hit with an up close toxic.

He squirmed out from under me, a shield of trump cards forming around him. I did the same, and we let loose our attacks on one another. Kedo ran forward, only to be jumped on by the small pokemon, who rubbed his cheek against his face. Kedo was shocked, and fell down, paralyzed.

I tackled him off Kedo, blasting him with shadow ball. He let loose a barrage of stars at me, but I dodged them, attacking with my own swift attack. This hit him as well, and he went down.

I ran over to Kedo. "Are you okay?"

He struggled to his feet, sparks flying around him. "I'll be fine. Let's find their flag."

We went to the back of the store, where a door was. Inside was a large electric generator, with a yellow flag on top. I put it around my neck as well.

"What do we do now?" I asked. Then I remembered KY. "KY! How are you guys doing?"

"We're pretty beat up, but we made it. Hana forced the Kimono's to retreat. We still have seven minutes until we can put up another protect, though.

Okay, so now we had three flags. "We got rid of the Skyscrapes, and we also managed to take the Polar Magnet's flag. They went to take the Skyscrape's."

"We can use that to our advantage. When they come back, should they have gotten the flag, they will come to put it with theirs. Hide in the room where you found it. When they come with the flag, cause a commotion and take it from them. Do you think you can do it?"

"Yeah, but how will we escape? Kedo is paralyzed."

"That's not good. Okay, we'll send Kykis that way. When he sees the commotion, he'll break in and teleport you guys back to here. Try not to attack him, since he's still a bit worn from the attack from the Skyscrapes."

We nodded, and found places to hide. Kedo hid in the air ducts while I hid in a box of wires. We waited, not knowing when they would get back.

After what seemed like forever, we heard voices from outside the room. "Nevo! Radic! What happened?"

There was a faint mumbling, which I guess was Radic. The door burst open, and Kedo let loose his smokescreen, filling the room with white smoke, making it almost impossible to see. I didn't dare move from the hiding spot, since electric attacks were flying everywhere.

I saw something move across the floor. It looked like a shadow. Kedo jumped down, and Kykis materialized, grabbing us. In a flash, we were back in the emporium.

"Good, the plan worked," KY said. "We're doing pretty well." Gani went over and healed Kedo of his paralysis.

I looked around the emporium. Loads of the shelves had been broken down, and lots of shattered glass littered the floor. "Did the Kimono's get in here?"

"Unfortunately yes," Hana said. She had a broom in hand and was sweeping up the glass. "I held them at the door for a while, but they eventually forced me in here. That's why it's so destroyed. Luckily I didn't hurt KY's control center. He had set up a metal dome around it which I didn't break through."

"Though you did make an unbearable racket," Gani said irritably.

"How are the others doing?" I asked.

"Pretty good. Auroc's group has shut down 8th street, which is now covered in ice and rock. Lilly's group is still watching the Geoaxes, who haven't used any weapons yet. The current scoring is us tied with the Geoaxes and Draviathans in first, us all having three, the Kimonos, Volcs, and Harmonics tied in second with two, the Shadow Eaters and Skyscrapes tied with three other minor gangs with one flag, and then nine gangs in last who don't have a flag. It appears that the Polar Magnets didn't get the Skyscrape's flag."

"Why are the Skyscrapes and Shadow Eaters so low?" I asked.

"The Skyscrapes all attack together, and we were their first target. Since they were taken down by the Polar Magnets, they haven't stolen any flags. The Shadow Eaters worry me. They sent a very strong attack force out. The one flag they got is from a gang called the Estuaries. They are probably waiting for something."

"For us." I said. "They want us to get a bunch of flags and attack."

"A good plan, but I don't think Dahk wants to take that chance," KY said. "He's lost to us too many times already, and doesn't want to risk being knocked out of the games so early. He'll probably deploy the same strategy upon some other gang, most likely the Kimonos or Volcs."

"How much time is left until the games end?"

"It's only one o'clock," Fort said. "We still have six hours."

I couldn't believe it had only been an hour. It felt like an eternity. "Well what should I do now?"

"Wait," KY said. "I want to see where the scoring goes. Try to get some sleep."

I knew I wasn't going to sleep, so I grabbed an iron ball off the floor and started rolling it between my paws. I wondered how well the shop had done when someone actually owned the stoor.

We waited for what seemed like an eternity. I didn't do anything but role the iron ball. KY stayed at his control center. Kykis, Gani, and Kedo fell asleep. Fort would put up a protect, and when it went away, he and Hana would go stand guard outside. When the protect was up, Hana would clean. No one tried to attack us, which frightened me. It was way to peaceful.

It reached five o'clock. KY sighed. "The scoring has only changed between the minor gangs. I think we should just steal a flag from one of them and call it a night." He looked back at the screen, and started working frantically. "Oh no!"

The Shadow Eater's score rose to five. The Skyscrapes and the three other gangs who had one flag now were in last with zero.

I stood up. "What should I do?"

"I'm not sure. I don't know if they would go and try to get more flags or if they're going to make sure they don't lose the ones they have. Kykis!" Kykis bolted awake. "I need you to tell me what's going on at the Shadow Eater's base."

In a flash, Kykis was gone. He came back a few minutes later. "They are still on the offensive. It looks like they are going to engage the Geoaxes."

"Fools. We have no choice to go and get those flags. In fact, everyone is going to go and get those flags. It's up to us to be first."

Kedo and I were gone before he could get out another word. He made another water motorcycle, and we were off. I noticed he was looking a little tired. It must have been from making something so big and detailed. I would have to worry about that later.

We sped to the security center, hiding in the alleyway across the street from it. The cacturne from before had regained consciousness, and had a Drapion and Skuntank with him.

"Great, they boosted their defenses," I said. "You have a plan?"

"I do, but it's not a good one." He ran out from the hiding spot. "What are you idiots doing? You were supposed to back us up when we went to attack! We are not about to get our butts kicked because you all are slacking off!"

I stared, horrified at what he was doing. He was a dark type, so he was trying to pass as one of them. The cacturne was the first to speak. "Our orders were to guard the door."

"Well the orders I heard were for you to follow us in case we needed back up! Why are you still arguing this? Get moving!"

"If those are our orders, why are you here?" The skuntank asked.

"Because someone had to get you moving."

The Drapion scowled. "Fine then. You remember where we hid the flags, right?"

"Uh..." Kedo paused. I was scared almost to the point of being able to use psyche scream. They knew.

"You're the idiot here," the Drapion said. "It's in the office room, remember?"

"Oh, of course. I apologize. It seemed to have slipped my mind."

"Oh really." The drapion grabbed Kedo. "We didn't hide it there. We hid it in the usual spot!"

Ice and stone erupted beneath the pokemon, sending them and Kedo flying. Auroc rushed forward, nailing the Cacturne in the stomach with an ice punch. Absolum and Ore blasted the Skuntank and Drapion with stone edge and razor wind.

"Couldn't even make it in the front door," Auroc said, smiling. "Not your best work."

I ran out of my hiding place. "Come on. Let's get those flags."

We ran inside, taking the stairs this time. When we reached the top, we came face to face with the tyranitar I had seen earlier. Though he wasn't asleep anymore.

He roared, glowing white. The light soon formed into a large ball in front of him. Ancient power. Before any of us could react, Kedo raced forward, a sword of water in hand, he cut through the attack, which exploded, sending him and the tyranitar flying in opposite directions.

The tyranitar started to get up, but Absolum pounced on him, a cloud of dust appearing. It was the same move he had used on Auroc. I still didn't know what it was. When the cloud settled, the large pokemon was unconscious.

"What move is that?" I asked.

"Play rough, a very useful fairy type attack."

We all walked over to Kedo, who was getting up shakily. "You really didn't think that one through, did you?" Ore asked.

He shook his head. He took a step, and collapsed, unconscious as well. "Well this complicates things," Auroc said.

"KY, Kedo just fainted. We're in the Shadow Eater's base. Can you send Kykis to come get him?"

"We're a little busy!" He yelled. "The Harmonics, Draviathans, and Kimonos are attacking!"

"What? Are the flags safe?"

"Yes, but if we can't stop them, they won't be for much longer!"

"We'll be back as soon as we can. Just give us a minute."

"No! They want everyone here. We can't beat them all! We did a count. Each one has their entire gang here. Even the flags are with them. We can't fight this many pokemon!"

I thought frantically. "I have an idea! Just keep fighting!" I ran to the security room, where the sneasel, along with a weavile and honchkrow, guarded the flags.

I let loose a toxic. "Get out now!"

They all were poisoned, and got ready to attack me. I let loose a crazy amount of trump cards, along with swift. "I said get out!" The attacks struck them all. Soon everyone else joined me, and we took them out easily.

I looked at the flags. I grabbed them all. "Come on! We have to go to the Skyscrapes!"

"What? Are you insane?" Auroc yelled.

I ran out of the room, quickly up the stairs. I made it all the way to the roof. I saw a group of flying pokemon. I sent a swift attack at them, grabbing their attention.

They came flying over, ready to attack. "Don't attack!" I yelled. "I got your flag back for you!"

They all slowed their flying down, and landed in a ring around me. A dragonite, who appeared to be in charge, spoke. "Why are you giving this back? Is this a trick?" I was startled by his deep voice.

"No, we aren't attacking you. I need your help. Our gang is being attacked by three of the major gangs, and we can't defeat them alone."

He stared for a moment. "And you want us to help?"

"Well it would be really nice. Please?"

He continued to stare. "And you are willing to give us our flag back?"

"Yes. I also want the other flags that got stolen to be returned to their respective gangs, to see if they will help us as well."

The dragon pokemon looked thoroughly confused. "You hold in your possession five flags. If I'm correct that you are from the Unnaturals, then even if you lost your three flags, you would still be in the lead. Why are you taking this risk?"

I lowered my head. I hadn't thought about that. "I don't know. I guess I kind of feel bad. I want our gang to win, but I don't really want to make anyone lose, either."

He turned to a Noctowl. "What time is it?"

"5:23, sir," he said.

He nodded. "What's your name, eevee?"

"Hydra."

"Well, Hydra, let us make you a deal. We help you protect yourselves against this attack. We should hopefully be done well before six, so that will leave an hour left in the games. For that last hour, we don't attack you, and you don't attack us. And, of course, you return our flag."

"Sir, they have eight flags!" A fearow said. "Can't we get another one?"

"No," the dragon said. "We will not take what is not rightfully ours. If we want any of those flags, we will have to take them fairly, not through blackmail. Besides, she plans on returning them to their gangs anyway."

I smiled. "Thank you so much sir!"

"What about us?"

I turned to see the Ampharos from the Polar Magnets, along with a lot of electric and steel pokemon, march up to us. "You two are the reason we don't have any flags! We are not going to get knocked out this early!"

"I can give you your flag back." I said. "Can you help us as well?"

She scowled. "Of course not. I came here to take a flag from you."

"I don't see that working out for you," Auroc said from behind all the pokemon. It was about time they had arrived. "You are staring down a strong group from the Unnaturals and some of the Skyscrapes. Is violence really the way you want to go?"

She scowled some more. "Please?" I said.

She sighed. "I suppose we'll still be doing the work for it. Fine. Let me contact the other gangs that those flags go to." Nevo, the rotom, stepped forward with what looked like a microphone. She turned it on. "Okay, I am paging all those who had their flag stolen by the Shadow Eaters. The Unnaturals have them, and if you want them back, you have to help them fight back the Draviathans, the Kimonos, and the Volcs. If anyone is interested in this, send up an attack from your base." We waited. There wasn't any attacks coming up from anywhere. "Okay then. If you want to take the flags back, just come by the Unnatural's base. Good luck, though. They are all crazy right down to their cores." She turned the microphone off. "Well, it looks like you will have a lot of flags."

"We will resolve the flag matter later," the dragonite said. He turned to me. "I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Korado."

"Well then, since we're being polite, I'm Dendy," the ampharos said.

I smiled. "So what's the plan?"

Korado looked at Dendy. "Do you have any pokemon with the ability soundproof?"

"A few."

"Good. They will distract the Harmonics, breaking up their song so we can attack. I will take a group to attack the Draviathians." He turned to me. "It is up to your gang to defeat the Kimonos."

I smiled. I didn't know how this was all going to end, but the battle was going to be pretty intense. "Sounds good. Let's go beat up a couple of major gangs."


	17. Chapter 17

"KY, I have help! We're coming to help protect the base with the Skyscrapes and Polar Magnets!" I yelled in my headpiece. I was flying on the back of a togekiss. Korado was in the lead. He had sent a ninjask back to get backup in case we needed it. The base was in sight.

"What? Why are they helping us?"

"We agreed to give them back their flags! It's the only way we can take them on!"

"You're absolutely insane! Well hurry up then! Fort's protect only has twelve seconds left!"

"Korado hurry!" I yelled.

"Faster, everyone!" He yelled. The groups speed picked up, but we weren't going to make it in time. I saw the shield go down.

The gangs rushed forward, but were struck by an enormous wall of pink flower petals. I saw Hana walk out of the emporium, the petals coming from her. Petal dance. "You will leave if you know what's good for you!" She yelled. The gangs charged forward. "Fine then!" The storm of pedals started moving faster, now being mixed with leaves. Leaf storm.

I saw a bunch of dragon types move forward, breathing fire through her attack. "Korado, protect Hana!" I yelled.

"I'm on it! Dragon busters, let's go!" I jumped onto the back of a staraptor, and the tokegiss I was on, along with a bunch of other pokemon, dove down, engaging the Draviathans.

I heard a loud song come from the ground. I looked to see a bunch of pokemon singing. It was a fast paced battle theme. The music seemed to make the air shake. The Harmonics. "Where are the Polar Magnets?"

Just then, a large explosion rang from in the middle of them. "Polar Magnets, go!" Dendy yelled. The polar magnets, screaming at the top of their lungs to drown out the noise from the Harmonics, ran in, swamping them in a wave of electric and steel types.

I saw a froslass move in towards Hana, with a flower looking pokemon and a nidoqueen close behind. The Kimonos. "Down there!" I yelled to the staraptor. "I need to get down there!"

The froslass let loose an ice beam at Hana. She jumped out of the way, only to be hit by the nidoqueen's sludge bomb. The staraptor dived.

"You pitiful child." I heard the froslass say to Hana. "You won last time, but not now. Time to go to sleep."

I leapt of the back of the staraptor, letting loose a strong toxic. "Stay back!" They were all struck. "Korado!"

The dragonite dove down, grabbing Hana and flying her to safety. I was feeling pretty good, until the Nidoqueen ran forward. She was a poison type, so my toxic didn't affect her.

Auroc landed in front of me, slamming his ice cover fists into her stomach. Ice slowly formed around her until she was frozen solid. "Keep fighting, Hydra!" He yelled, running off to help fight the Draviathans.

"You meddling brat!" The Froslass yelled. "Diantha, let's get her!"

The flower looking pokemon raised her hand into the air, a pink ball of energy forming. I didn't know what this was. I didn't care. I formed a shield of trump cards and shot a shadow ball at her. She was hit, and the attack died down.

The froslass flew forward, but then was knocked to the side by a pokemon who had jumped on top of her. It was Lilly. "Don't touch my gang!" A shadow ball formed in her mouth, and she blasted the pokemon at close range. I wonder what she replaced shadow ball with, but I ignored it for the moment.

Mark, Elric, and Eriff came running over as well. "Quite the battle," Elric said. "I can't believe they didn't invite us."

"Well get battling!" Lilly yelled. Elric nodded, and was gone in a flash. Mark was about to run off, but then disappeared in a flash. Kykis had teleported him somewhere.

KY came flying out. "Bad news! All of the minor gangs are here too! And the Geoaxes are coming as well, along with the Shadow Eaters and Volcs! Every flag in the game is going to be in this one battle!"

"Then let's get a few and get out of here!" Lilly yelled. "Get Fort over here as fast as you can!"

KY nodded, and soon Fort came running over with him. "What do you need?"

"I need you to form a protect around all of us except Eriff. We need to makes some space for us."

He nodded, and we became surrounded in a shield of energy. There was a couple of flashes, and the rest of the gang, excluding Mark and Kykis, were safe as well. Eriff smiled at me from outside the shield. "Ready to see my grass attack?"

He turned to face the pokemon, which were all getting really close to us. He closed his eyes, and a violent storm of petals flew out from him, striking pokemon in all directions. It was way too thick and violent to be petal dance. "What move is that?" I asked Lilly.

"Petal Blizzard, Eriff's unnatural talent."

The pokemon were being pushed back by the sheer force from his attack. Soon there was a ring of empty space around us. The shield went down. "Unnaturals," Lilly yelled. "Attack!"

We all dove into the battle, attacking every pokemon in sight. The battle raged, every pokemon gang in the game crammed into one street, battling for a flag. I didn't know how long it lasted, but it went on for a long time. I had a few close calls. An ursaring nearly hit me with a strong Hammer arm. Then I nearly got put to sleep by a Harmonic's sing. It was complete chaos.

Soon, the battle died down, and the attacking forces started to diminish. Soon we were done, only us, the Skyscrapes, and the Polar Magnets left.

"We did it!" I cheered. I did a flag count. I had lost most of them in the battle, but I still had a few. Most importantly I still had the Skyscrapes and Polar Magnets. I gave them both back to Dendy and Korado. "Thank you so much for your help."

"A pleasure," Korado said.

"Yeah. That was pretty fun," Dendy said, grinning.

Lilly walked over. "I was wondering why you all were helping us. It appears our social butterfly made a few temporary alliances."

I looked down. "I'm sorry I didn't get confirmation from you before making that decision. I didn't get any sort of agreement from anyone. It was wrong of me to make such a rash decision."

"Hey, whatever you do, do with confidence." She smiled. "Besides, we still have three flags, ours included."

"Alright folks!" Samantha called from above us. "You all probably lost track of time in that battle, but it is finally seven o'clock! The capture the flag game is over!"

"Now let's look at the final score!" Akiah said cheerfully. "In third, with one flag, we have a five way tie between the Polar Magnets, the Skyscrapes, the Draviathans, the Estuaries, and the Infestations! In second, we have a three way tie between the Harmonics, the Geoaxes, and the Kimonos! And, in first place, there is a three way tie between the Shadow Eaters, the Volcs, and the Unnaturals!"

There was a loud cheer from all the gangs who made it to the next round. "We got first!" Lilly yelled, jumping excitedly. "Perfect!"

"Nice job," Korado said.

"You aren't mad you got third?" I asked.

"What matters is we all made it to the next round," Dendy said. "Besides, we signed up for this chaotic battle. It's what we get for being crazy."

I saw Kan and War walking over, War's hands full of belue berries. "Hey, Hydra!" Kan yelled. "Nice job. You guys put up a serious fight!"

"Let's not leave out the other two gangs here!" War said. "Still as strong as ever, Korado." He threw him a berry. "And your Dendy, right? Gotta hand it to you, you Polar Magnet's were trouble, even with my gang having so many ground specialists."

"Now," Samantha said, breaking up everyone's cheering, "For those of you who didn't have a flag, there will be a small contest to see if any of you can move on. Nine gangs didn't have a flag. The most that will get will move on will be six of you, but if you can't complete the challenge, you will not move on. The contest will happen outside the city in three days. Enjoy a nice break!"

"Well, it looks like this is where we part," Dendy said. "Though don't think this means were going to let any of you win." With that, the polar magnet's left. The Skyscrapes left as well, only Korado staying behind.

"Well, guess it is time to be heading out," War said.

"Hey, War," I said, needing to ask him a question. "Have you been attacked lately?"

"No, but we can't drop our guard. None of you let your guard down either. Remember, come get us if you are attacked." He threw us all a berry, and left.

"I do need to return to my gang," Korado said. He smiled at me. "You did good. I think we'll have to look out for your gang in this competition." He flew off in the direction the other Skyscrapes had gone.

"He's not wrong," Kan said. "Nice job, you guys. If we don't win, my money is on you." He left as well, leaving us all alone.

"Well done, gang," Lilly said. "Is anyone injured?"

"We're fine," Gani said. "Can we just get back to the base? I'm exhausted. I did not sign up for that sort of chaos."

Lilly nodded. "Yes, let us be getting back. And congratulations to Mark and Kykis for evolving."

I looked over and noticed Mark had in fact evolved. He was now much bigger, with a larger tail and main. He still had a scar over his eye, though. "So there was a fire stone in the emporium?" I asked.

"Yeah. Looks like Kannin knew what he was talking about."

We all walked back to our base. "Everyone get some sleep." Lilly said. "While we do have a break, we aren't going to just relax. Tonight is when Hydra, Hana, and Ore will visit Kasuai. Elric, while they do that, keep an eye on the Geoaxes, and take Kykis with you."

"No rest for the wicked," Hana sighed. "We should be ready to leave by sunset."

We all went to bed, exhausted from the games. I fell asleep, so happy that we had one, and so excited for the rest of the games.


	18. Chapter 18

"Are we sure we can even find her here?" I asked, staring at the massive portion of the city that was the Freeland Stele. We left for the place just after sunset. It was dark now, the street lamps lit. Though there was more than street lamps here. Lights hung from everywhere, all different colors. They covered broken buildings, debris, and I even saw a swimming pool with no water in it. Just lights.

"I know where she will be," Hana said. "I may not know a lot about Kasuai, but I know she spends a lot of time in the steel factory, Which is at the north of the Freeland."

We walked down the streets, and sure enough, there was a huge factory, smoke rising from the large chimneys. There was a bored looking Vespiquen in front of the door. She looked a bit surprised when she saw us. "Oh, members of a gang? What business do you have here?"

"We are here to talk to Kasuai," Hana said. "It is rather important."

She stared us down. "Urgent, huh? Is it private urgent business?"

"Yes. We won't be long."

"We promise we won't cause any trouble," I said. "Can we please see her?"

"It isn't regarding the tournament, is it?" She said, getting rather close to us.

"No, ma'am."

She pulled back, and sighed. "Fine. Just watch where you walk. It can be a bit dangerous in there."

We thanked her, and walked in the front door. Then we stopped, completely awestruck by what we saw.

Loads of pokemon were running around, all working. The thing that I noticed most was the huge amount of steel poles. All stacked in different shapes and sizes. They were being stacked by cranes, which pokemon were operating. There were huge forges, in which huge pieces of scrap metal were being dropped into. I even saw a huge pile of rock, which was glowing from the heat underneath it.

We saw Kasuai on a huge forklift, but she wasn't working. She wore a yellow hardhat, which had a hole in it for the jaw that came from the back of her head. How she put it on was a mystery. She seemed to be cheering. "All right, everyone! Keep working! You're doing great!"

"Kasuai!" The vespiquen, who had ended up following us in, yelled. "You have visitors!"

She looked down, and then smiled. "Hana! It's been so long!" She didn't even lower the forklift. She just jumped off, landing nimbly and running over, giving Hana a big hug.

Hana seemed a little uncomfortable. "You do remember that we only met once, right?"

"Yeah, but it's still been a long time." She smiled at Ore and me. "You two are in the Unnaturals, right? It's nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too," I said. "I'm Hydra, and this is Ore!"

She just seemed to radiate pep and happiness. "Wow, those are such awesome names!"

A golem came rolling quickly over. "Kasuai, ma'am, but we can't get the rock to melt."

"Aw, why not?" She frowned. "Do we need more fire?"

"I don't know ma'am. We just can't get the stuff to combine."

Ore looked at the huge pile of stone, and walked over. He put his hand on the rocks, which seemed to have cooled a little. It glowed white, and when we looked back, it was one huge slab of stone.

Kasuai jumped up and down. "Wow, that was absolutely amazing!" She grinned, her eyes gleaming with excitement. "Alright, destruction crew, turn it to rubble!"

A huge barrage of attacks rained down on the stone, and before we knew it, the stone had been turned into a fine powder. Ore looked horrified, then something dawned on him. "Oh, you're making cement."

"Yep!" Kasuai said. "That was really impressive. How did you do it?"

"It was something I was born able to do."

"Well it was really cool. Thanks for your help." She smiled at him, and he smiled back.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"This is our biggest plan ever!" Kasuai said. "The RRR Program! We are recycling old stone, metal, wood, pretty much everything, remaking it into new construction pieces, and hope to one day help rebuild the city!"

"You really think you can do it?" I asked.

"Of course!" She winked at me. "I believe we can do anything we set our minds to! So we will keep up our good work! Right guys?" All the pokemon that were working cheered.

"Didn't you say that you had urgent business?" The Vespiquen asked.

"Oh, don't be so stiff," Kasuai said, smiling at her. "Why don't you take a break for a little bit?"

She huffed. "No thank you. I'll just be getting back to my post." She left, resuming her station at the front door.

"Well we do have something urgent to discuss with you," Hana said.

"Sure! How can I help you?"

"Well," I said. I wasn't sure how to ask it now. It felt like a bit of a personal question. But we had to know. "What is your relation with the Geoaxes, War in particular?"

She looked a bit startled by the question. "What do you mean?"

"It's a long story," I said, "but we need to know everything you know about him."

She hesitated. Her smile was gone. "We can't talk about it here. Let's go somewhere else."

Loads of workers looked really concerned. "Kasuai, are you alright?" The golem from before asked.

"I'm fine. I'm leaving you in charge until I get back." She led us out the door. We walked down the street until we got to a rather nice looking building. We walked inside, and there were tables everywhere. It was a coffee shop.

She ordered us all a cup, and a smiling blissey brought us our drinks. Kasuai thanked her. She didn't talk for a long time. I noticed she had a necklace on, with a stone a bit like Auroc's and Absolum's. Hers was pink, with a yellow and black inside. She was playing with it. Then she finally broke the silence. "I want to hear this long story of yours. Why are you learning about War?"

I looked at Hana, then Ore. They both nodded. "Well, you see, when I first joined the gang, before Hana and Ore had joined, we didn't have enough members to enter the tournament. We went looking. I found Ore, and when we brought him back to the base, Other members of our gang came, carrying a severely wounded absol. They said the Geoaxes attacked them with weapons. Then Hana's Freeland was attacked by the Shadow Eaters. They claimed they hired the Geoaxes to kill Lilly, our leader. Then, a bit later, we went to Glacial Tower in hope of recruiting another member, Auroc, the lucario. While we were there, the Geoaxes attacked. I fought War myself, alongside Auroc. He tried to kill Auroc. He stabbed him with a spear, but I managed to force him back."

Kasuai was gripping her cup extremely hard. "What does this have to do with you learning more about him?"

"Because I don't think they did it," I said. Kasuai looked up in surprise. I continued. "I talked to War after the first part of the Tournament. It was like he was a completely different person. He didn't remember me, and he claimed to never have gone to Glacial Tower. He also said they had been being attacked recently. I believe someone is trying to frame them. Kan said that you had some relation with him. Can you please talk to me about it? I want to stop whoever is trying to make him look like a bad guy."

There were multiple expressions on her face, none resembling the cheerfulness we had seen earlier. "I can't tell you my relation to War, but I can tell you that he would never attack unfairly or without reason. And he would never side with the Shadow Eaters. The Geoaxes already get a bad rep, when they haven't done anything wrong."

"But loads of people see them destroying buildings," Hana said.

"That's because War is extremely reckless. I asked him to help me gather metal and stone for the RRR Program. They had soon gathered all the scraps from their territory. Then War came up with an idea. He would note all the buildings that were completely empty and abandoned, that were too broken to serve any purpose, and break them down, giving me the scraps. I told him not to, that people would hate him for it, but he didn't care." She seemed close to tears. "I don't know who attacked you, but it wasn't War."

I nodded. "Then we need to work on finding that imposter."

"Hydra! Hana! Ore!"

We all ran outside to see Elric and Kykis running over to us. They looked horrified. "They Geoaxes are under attack, and they are losing! The enemy is using real weapons!"

I looked at Kasuai. She looked horrified. She turned into the direction of the factory, took a deep breath, then screamed at the top of her lungs.

It was like she started a stampede. All of her workers ran out of the building, led by the golem and vespiquen. "Kasuai, what's wrong?"

"The Geoaxes are in danger! I'm going ahead to help them! Everyone follow! We have to save them!"

"But ma'am," the golem said, "his wishes."

"I don't care! I'm not letting him get hurt!" She turned to face us, an extreme fire in her eyes. I now saw why she led these people. "Take me to them now!"

Kykis nodded, and in a flash of light, we were in the Geoaxes territory. The battle raged on. We could see knifes and spears flying, along with the occasional sound of gunfire.

I saw War fending off three pokemon with swords. He had stolen a shield which he was using to protect himself. Kasuai looked murderous. "Hey!"

They turned to face her, only to get punched in the stomach. Hard. Her fists were glowing purple slightly. Sucker punch. She stepped in front of War. "Don't you _dare_ touch my little brother!"

We stared in shocked silence.

Little brother?

Soon the rest of the Unnaturals had joined up with us. They had also heard what she said. "Is that even possible?" Auroc asked.

"Yes," Eriff said. "Both mawile and nidoking belong to the field egg group. It is possible."

War looked horrified. "Kasuai, why are you here? Get out of here! It's dangerous!"

"No way! I'm not letting you fight without me!"

He scowled. "Fine then, are you ready?" She nodded. He held up his right fist. On the far left claw was a ring I had never noticed before. It looked a lot like the bracelet on Lilly's tail.

"Go, mega evolution!"

The ring started to glow, as did the gem on Kasuai's necklace. She became incased in a pink circular cocoon of energy, and when it broke apart, Kasuai looked like she had evolved. She was bigger, more pink than cream colored, with two huge, super scary jaws coming from the back of her head.

"Can we do that?" I asked.

"I don't know." Lilly said. "Auroc, Absolum, do you want to try?"

"Of course!" They said in unison.

"Then let's do it. Go, mega evolution!"

The same thing happened to the bracelet and gems, then they both looked like they had evolved as well, Auroc looking taller with black web looking designs across his body while Absolum looked like an angel of death.

"Take them down!" Lilly yelled. Everyone darted forward, ready to engage the enemy.

Kasuai was beating us to it.

We got to the enemies close to us, but she was taking them down like they were nothing. They didn't even see her coming. She would hit most of them with sucker punch, and some she would pounce on, surrounding them in clouds of dust. Play rough. "Leave my brother and his gang alone!"

Someone threw a spear at her. "Look out!" I yelled.

War was there in a flash, putting up a protect, which the spear deflected off of. "Don't touch my sister!" He ran forward, his fist glowing purple, but when he struck opponents, they would appear poisoned. Poison jab.

Despite our best efforts, more pokemon would flood the area. Even when Kasuai's workers arrived we were having a hard time. I came face to face with a tauros, who was trying hard to stomp on me, and I remembered something. It took me a few tries, but I managed to release a few pink hearts, looking cutely at the pokemon. Good, I remembered how to use charm.

He didn't look like he wanted to attack, which allowed Auroc to hit him hard with an aura sphere. "Nice job, Hydra!"

"Thanks!" I didn't know what it was, but I felt kind of funny, like I was getting really hot. I ignored it.

I looked in the direction of Lilly and Eriff to see a tyranitar bearing down on them. "No!" I yelled. I went to form a shadow ball, but it felt different inside. When I let loose the attack, it was pink, not purple. It struck him, and he was thrown back.

They stared at me. "When did you learn that trick?"

"I don't know. Just now?"

I saw Kasuai and War surrounded by a ring of pokemon. "Time to put these punks in their place!" Kasuai yelled.

"Allow me to help you!" He put his hand on her head, and she became covered in a colorful aura. Helping hand. They both raised their hands up.

"Double rock slide!"

Large rocks started raining down. It was really cool since it covered pretty much the entire street. The bad news was that we were included in the attacks. We frantically dodged the rocks, but soon the whole area was covered in dust, and I had lost track of everyone.

After what seemed like forever, I climbed up onto the rocks and surveyed the area. I couldn't see anyone. Then I saw War walking over. "Hydra!"

"War, are you okay?"

"I'm fine, and so is Kasuai. She headed back to Stele."

I nodded, but then something came to mind. Kasuai would have never left so quick, and War seemed like he wouldn't want her out of his sight right now. Something was off.

"Well that's good. Hey, you got any more of those pamtre berries from the party? After all this fighting we could all use a break, and aren't they your favorite?"

"Sorry, but I already ate them. They are my favorite, so I just couldn't resist."

I scowled. "Wrong answer!" I blasted him with an up close trump card. I had already used it a lot in battle, so it did massive damage.

"Hydra, what are you doing?" Lilly yelled, running over with the rest of the gang.

"That's not War!" I yelled. "That's the imposter!"

Kasuai exploded out from under the rocks. "Where is he? Let me at him!"

The pokemon scowled, and took off down the street. I ran after him. "Stop right there!"

To my surprise, he froze in mid run. I stopped running. I wasn't scared. Why had I used psyche scream? I looked at everyone else. They had frozen too. "Unfreeze."

Nothing happened.

I started to panic. "Unfreeze!" Still nothing. "Unfreeze!"

There was no reaction. I quickly ran over to where Kasuai was and started frantically moving rocks. If War was frozen, he wouldn't be able to free himself.

I managed to get his head free. "Unfreeze!" I yelled again. Still, nothing happened.

I started to panic, and sat down, tears falling from my eyes.

Not again. Everyone was always so impressed with psyche scream, but there was a reason I considered it a curse. I couldn't always control it. Sometimes they would just freeze, and I couldn't get them to move again. Last time it had happened, someone had nearly died.

"Unfreeze!" I commanded again, tears falling from my face. They stayed as still as statues. I fell down, put my face in my paws and cried, overcome by the feelings of helplessness and loneliness.

"Unfreeze!"


End file.
